The Soul Gem Crusaders
by PadawanNerd
Summary: Kujo Jotaro, age seventeen, wakes up in a strange city with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Who are these people called magical girls? Why is everything here so familiar? And what the hell is a Stand?
1. Jotaro the Invader

He woke up. He was lying on the floor, staring up at a brightly lit ceiling. He could feel cuts and bruises all over his body, as if he had been fighting recently, but he couldn't remember the details. Clearly, someone had been better than him.

God, that pissed him off. He wasn't even sure why.

"Ah! He's awake!"

Suddenly, faces crowded in around him. Wide, trusting, innocent faces, like he hadn't seen in… how long was it? He couldn't remember. His mother would know.

His mother…

The nearest face to him, a girl with pink hair done up in twin-tails with two red ribbons, laid a hand on his forehead.

He wasn't wearing his hat. Why wasn't he wearing his hat?

"Hi there! Are you all right?"

He blinked. The pink girl was speaking to him.

"You fell in here through a window. I must say, you've been disrupting class for a few minutes now just for existing." She smiled. "Not to worry, though! We'll try and help you. Do you need to be taken to the nurse's office?"

"Uh…" He wasn't sure what to say. Days like this pissed him off. "Yeah. I think I'm injured bad."

The girl caught his gaze, and for the brief moment before he blinked and focused on her shoulder instead, he noticed she had pink eyes to match her hair. Weird. "Okay. Do you think you could stand?"

Stand… why was that word so familiar?

"Yeah, I think so." He sat up slowly, grunting as pieces of glass dropped from his body. He was stiff, sore, and he was pretty sure one or two bones were broken or fractured. (As usual.)

The pink girl grasped his arm gently. "Slowly, don't strain yourself! I'm the medical officer for this class, so I'll help you to the sick bay, okay?"

"…Okay." He accepted her help to get up, even though on a good day he could probably have thrown her like a paper airplane. She smiled at him again.

"All right?"

"Yeah."

He looked around himself. He was in some sort of school classroom, a clean white and beige affair that seemed more than just modern – to his eyes, it looked positively futuristic, like something out of an old sci-fi movie. The screen at the front alone – a high-tech projection type thing – was probably worth as much as the Speedwagon Foundation could make in a year. (What was that company for, again? It was oil or something, right?) Below him, a bunch of glass and, not surprisingly, a fair amount of blood. And…

"My hat!" He grabbed the precious black cap and jammed it securely on his head, nearly sighing with relief as he felt the comforting brim shadow his face. That was better.

"Ah, yes, that came off when you landed," said the pink girl cheerfully, ignoring the broken desks and pieces of window all around. She focused, instead, on him, giving him a pat on the back that dislodged some glass onto the floor. "It must be very important to you."

"It is."

"Here, follow me to the nurse's office." She turned and walked towards the door without taking any notice of her staring classmates (where was the teacher? Out somewhere?). "My name is Kaname Madoka. What's yours?"

He followed her, out into the corridor – or, rather, an open space – that led to other rooms. They all seemed to be walled with glass in a totally utilitarian and futuristic design. He stared despite himself.

Then he looked down again, realizing the pink girl had asked him a question. Kaname Madoka… A Japanese name. Why was he in Japan again? He had been… where had he been?

"Er… Kaname Madoka-san, was it? I am…" He hesitated, feeling his brain go fuzzy for a moment while he tried to remember his name. It was his own goddamn _name_ , goddamn it, why was this so hard? "My name is… Kujo Jotaro. A lot of people call me Jojo."

The pink girl smiled radiantly. She really did smile a lot. "Call me Madoka, everyone does! It's nice to meet you, Kujo-kun." Jeez. He hadn't been called something like that in… how long was it? He wasn't sure.

"Likewise, Madoka-san."

She giggled, although he hadn't really said anything funny. "Come on, this way!"

"So, how old are you, Jotaro-kun?"

"I…" He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember how fucking old he was, and that was not ideal. "Seventeen, I think."

"Ah, you're already a third year! I'm in the first year of high school myself…" A flicker of something odd appeared on her face for a moment, but was gone again before Jotaro could blink. "Well, you might still be able to join our school as a transfer student."

He frowned. He wasn't supposed to be the transfer student. That was… someone else. Why couldn't he remember? And there was something he had to do. Something important. He couldn't stay here… wherever here was. (But where was he really supposed to be? He didn't know; maybe he'd be able to figure it out if he stayed a few days…)

"Madoka-san?"

"Yes?"

"Where… where is this place? _What_ is this place?"

"Ah, you don't know?" She waved a hand. "Well, it doesn't matter. I suppose you're from out of town, by that school uniform." She adjusted her skirt delicately. "This is Mitakihara Senior School, in Mitakihara City, Japan. Is there anything in particular you'd like to know?"

They passed onto a long, glass-windowed bridge-tunnel, spanning the gap between two buildings. "Why can't I remember anything?"

Madoka stopped and turned around to look at him. "Eh? You can't remember? Can't remember what, exactly?"

He bunched his fists. "Can't remember how I got here, for a start. I've never even heard of a Mitakihara City. I could have sworn…" He rubbed his forehead under his hat. "I think I was out of the country, the last I can remember. But I have no idea where, or how I got back here."

"Hmm." Madoka's face was serious, concerned. "Maybe that fall gave you a concussion, or amnesia? We'll definitely have to get that seen to by the nurse. Do you know if there's anyone nearby who you can stay with? Who can help you? Maybe family in Japan, or something."

"Maybe, but… my mother…" He concentrated. There was something about his mother that he needed to remember. Something important. "I don't know," he admitted, finally.

"Well, not to worry, Jojo-kun!" Madoka patted him on the bicep (she couldn't reach any higher). "I'm sure we can figure something out for you."

"Thank you, Madoka-san. Truly."

"You're welcome!"

He felt oddly out of sorts, hesitant and uncertain as if the loss of his memories had also affected who he was as a person. He adjusted his hat and tried to ignore the feeling.

Madoka turned back towards the medical office. "You know, Jotaro-kun, today me and a couple of friends were going to go to the mall. There's a cool music store, a food court, and all sorts of interesting places… You can come, if you want!"

"Uh… sure. Got nothing else to do." He probably did, but he couldn't remember it for the life of him. And Madoka seemed marginally less annoying than some other girls he could mention.

(He didn't have a concussion. The nurse frowned at him, but fixed him up without tearing his expensive pants or damaging his uniform.)


	2. Good Grief, Miracles and Magic are Real

And so Kujo Jotaro, age probably seventeen, found himself standing in a music store with Madoka and her blue-haired friend, listening to what Madoka assured him were the "latest hits" (even though they didn't sound anything like any of the music he had heard of). The blue girl had scoffed at that – "Real music has violins in it, _baka_!" – but Madoka seemed not to mind. It would have been a friendly type of scene, if he wasn't three years older and about thirty centimetres taller than either of them (well, probably. He still wasn't sure of his own age, never mind these girls).

He began to fiddle with the chain on his collar, longing for a chance to smoke a cigarette, and for the first time noticed an odd ring on the middle finger of his right hand. It was silver, with a purplish gem set in the middle. Star shapes and odd-looking runic symbols decorated the band surrounding the jewel. It was beautiful, in a way. Had he ever worn a ring like this? He tried to remember.

"Madoka." She looked up. "Do you know if someone put this –"

 _Madoka! Jotaro! Sayaka! Help me!_ The voice echoed in his head, and he almost jumped. "What the –"

But Madoka and the blue girl looked at each other and nodded.

"Come on, Jotaro-kun," said Blue (Sayaka?), "We need to help him!"

Him? "Madoka-chan, what's going on?"

"He's calling for us! He's in danger! Come on!"

They ran out of the store one after the other, the other customers staring after them in confusion and shock. Had they not heard the voice? Well, whatever. It was none of their goddamn business what went on in his head.

They found their way to an abandoned corridor. Something was coming… Gunshots, or something similar, sounded from within the building. A scamper of tiny feet seemed to be coming towards them, closer, nearer…

A ceiling tile dropped down and a mysterious-looking _thing_ , some sort of animal like a white cat with a second pair of long ears, tumbled down, covered in bruises and cuts. Madoka dashed forward.

"Kyubey!" (What kind of a name was that?) The pink-haired girl took the thing in her arms. "Who did this to you?"

Before the thing could answer – if it even could answer – a third girl ran in, dressed in the same school uniform that the others wore. She had long black hair and large, purple eyes, and seemed… oddly familiar to Jotaro, who knew he'd never seen the girl in his life. She stopped and stared at Kyubey.

"Stay away from that creature." A flat, toneless voice, devoid of passion or hope.

Madoka looked up. "Homura-chan? You're a –"

"Yes, of course I am." The purple-eyed girl raised a fist, and Jotaro caught sight of an achingly familiar silver-and-purple ring. (Were they married? No, that was stupid…) "And I tell you again, stay away from that creature. It has displeased me."

"That's no excuse for you to try to kill him! Leave him alone!"

The girl glared at the cat and shook her head. "And you, Jotaro."

"What about me?"

"Stay out of my way." With that, she turned away and walked out of sight.

"Too much of a coward to stand and fight, huh?" Sayaka shook her fist at the retreating figure. "Hah! I'm too much for ya!"

"Tch." Jotaro adjusted his hat. "I don't even know her."

Madoka sighed. "That's Akemi Homura. She transferred to our class this morning, before you… you know. She was out of the classroom when it happened, so you didn't see her, but…"

Everyone would have been talking about the two-meter tall guy who'd fallen into their classroom. Of course.

 _She seems to have it out for you both, Madoka, Jotaro._ The cat-thing – Kyubey? – looked up at them from Madoka's arms. _She is very dangerous, and her power… It's unlike anything I've ever seen._

"Well, don't worry, you two!" Sayaka grinned at them and bunched her hand into fists. "I'll protect you from the bad guys!" She laughed. "Though I don't suppose Jotaro-kun needs much protecting…"

They walked on, through the darkened labyrinth that was the back areas of the store. There was an odd feeling in the air…

"Something isn't right here."

Sayaka nodded. "Yeah, I feel it. Look out for anything suspicious."

They kept walking. The world… changed.

Butterflies – or something similar – fluttered around the trio. White blobs of cotton stared at them from the bushes that weren't supposed to be there. He blinked and waved a hand in front of his face. "What's going on?"

"Shh." Suddenly Sayaka was the one in control, looking around her with the air of someone who knew what she was doing. "It's the enemy." Enemy?

The cotton buds came closer to them, chanting in some unknown language and wielding strange scissors between them.

"Sayaka-chan! You need to transform!" whispered Madoka. "We need to defend ourselves!"

"Wait for it…"

A gunshot fired, then several more. A few of the closest cotton balls screamed and burst into clouds of butterflies.

"Are you all right there?" A girl appeared over the horizon, golden tendrils wrapping around her body but leaving an opening for her head. She had yellow-gold curly hair, done into a pair of springy twin-tails. "Don't worry, I'll take care of this!"

With that, she disappeared again. Gunshots sounded, a steady volley of them until –

The world shifted and wobbled around them. The four of them – Jotaro, Madoka, Sayaka, and the cat-thing – were standing in the empty corridor again.

Golden tendrils began to snake up from the ground and coalesced into a head. The face, with it green eyes and grey mask, seemed… familiar somehow.

"Hierophant… Green?"

The thing seemed to smile slightly and spoke with the same feminine voice as the yellow girl from before. "Actually, in this form my name is Hierophant Gold." The golden head split open to reveal the spring-tailed girl. "But you can call me Mami if you want."

With that, the golden ribbons began to peel away from her, unwrapping slowly to reveal the girl underneath. She was wearing the same uniform as the other three, and smiled at them carefully. "Thank you for saving Kyubey. He's quite dear to me."

"What's going on?" Jotaro stared from Madoka to Sayaka to Mami and back again, completely confused. "What are – who?"

"Ah." Mami's smile became more radiant. "I'm on your side, fear not. Your blue-haired friend there can transform, it seems; so, we're fighting the same enemy."

"Transform?" He stared at Sayaka, who shrugged. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you saw what I did just then, right?" Mami indicated to herself, where the golden tentacles had so recently been spiralling. "You even called me Hierophant, although you got the colour wrong."

"What are you, an evil spirit?"

"On the contrary, Mister Black Hat." She curtseyed. "I am a magical girl."


	3. Let's Go Hunting!

The five of them sat in the abandoned corridor. Sayaka and Mami were trying, to the best of their combined abilities, to get their stories straight.

Mami held up an egg-shaped gem, suffused with a pretty golden colour and a few small clouds of black around the edges. "This is a soul gem. It allows Sayaka and I to transform into those beings."

"I've never seen one that looks like that before," said Madoka. Then she blushed. "I've only ever seen Sayaka-chan's before, though…"

"Do you transform, Madoka-chan?" asked Mami.

"No… I haven't made a wish yet." She sighed and pouted slightly. "It's so hard to decide!"

Mami nodded sympathetically and looked up at Jotaro to make sure he understood. "You see, Jotaro-kun, you can only transform if you make a wish of Kyubey here." (It was weird, somehow, to have her calling him 'Jotaro-kun', even though this was Japan and it was normal here; he felt as though she should drop the honorifics and talk to him straight on, like… He grimaced and rubbed his head. This was dumb. He couldn't remember anything.)

In response to Mami's gesture, Kyubey nodded and swished his thick, white tail. _Then I make a contract with the person to become a magical girl._

"I see." He frowned. "And what do you call these demon transformations?"

Mami, once more, looked up at him. "Well, because when you use them, they stand for who you are, we in the magical girl community like to call them… Stands."

Stands… there was that word again. What did it mean? He racked his brain.

With a sigh, Mami looked back at the gem in her palm. It twisted, turned flowed down, into –

"That's another of those rings. Homura-chan had one, and –" he put out his hand – "I have one too."

"What?" Madoka looked up at him in surprise, staring at the ring on his finger. "Jotaro-kun, you didn't tell me you had a Stand!"

"I… didn't know."

"Oh, the amnesia…"

Mami gaped at the ring and turned to Kyubey. "You never said it was possible for boys to have one!"

 _Didn't I? Just because I call you a magical girl does not negate the existence of magical boys._

A magical boy… Tch. He adjusted his hat. "Give me a break, cat, you piss me off. I don't remember ever making a contract with you."

 _You don't remember anything, it seems. Not even your Stand._ The red eyes blinked at him from that pure, unmoving white face. _Although I admit, I do not remember your wish either. From the energy I sense from your Stand, it was a powerful one. The utmost desire of your heart._

"Well…" Madoka frowned. "Perhaps if we team up with Mami, we can look for clues about it? There's got to be someone or something among the magical girls – er, magical people of Mitakihara city that can help."

Sayaka snorted and gestured towards the open ceiling tile. "I doubt that Homura-chan will be willing to share any information."

"I'm sure there are others!" Madoka gave Jotaro a big smile. "We'll do everything we can to help you get your memory back!"

And so, for lack of anywhere else to go, Kujo Jotaro went home with Madoka that evening. Her parents stared at him for a while, but reluctantly allowed him to stay in the spare room "as long as you don't get up to any funny business!" He nodded gratefully, and collapsed into sleep almost immediately.

Somehow, it already felt like it had been a long day.


	4. As if I Met Him in My Dream

"Let's go to school together, Jotaro-kun!"

"Good grief. I'm not even enrolled."

Madoka waved her hand airily, and for an awful, aching moment he was reminded of his mother. (But why was that painful? And why, despite the similarities, did he not feel like being rude to her as he was with his mother?) "No need to worry! Mama and Papa and I arranged for your temporary enrolment while you were asleep! It might be useful if you're going to stay for a while – you can ask around about what's going on at school."

"School would just get in the way."

"Not necessarily!" She beamed at him, and he felt her eyes on him. He concentrated on her left elbow, where Kyubey was winding up her arm lazily. "A lot of magical girls – sorry, people – are school age, apparently!"

 _That's true. They may be hiding in plain sight in the school and will probably know something about your sudden appearance._

"Fine. But I keep my normal clothes." He pointed to his black hat and jacket, lying in the corner of the room where he had left them. "Those are from my old school and I'm not changing them, okay?"

"Okay! Whatever you like."

* * *

Madoka's mother waved at them as they walked out of the door, clothed and breakfasted, with a smile on her face that had clearly been passed down to her daughter. "You two be careful, okay? I don't know what's going on with you, Jotaro-kun, but there are a lot of dangerous people out there."

"Aba!" The kid in the high chair seemed to agree.

"We will, Mama! We're off now!"

Her dad's voice sounded from the garden. "Have a good day!"

"Yeah." Jotaro adjusted his hat and followed his new friend (Were they friends now? Probably.) out of the house.

She seemed pretty happy to walk without talking too much, which was fine – in fact, he preferred it that way, but… something was bothering him. "So… you're really fourteen?"

Madoka scratched her head thoughtfully. "To be honest, Jotaro-kun, I'm not really sure how old I am myself."

"What? Why?"

She frowned, for the first time since he'd met her. "For some reason I feel like I should be older than I am. Much older, perhaps even in my seventies."

"Your seventies? You'd be an old lady."

She laughed and waved her hand again, and once more Jotaro was reminded of his mother. They could have been related, almost… "Ah, yeah, I guess so! It's just…" Her expression fell again. "The night before you… came here, I had a really weird dream. About… about Homura, and Kyubey, and, well… you." She looked at him intently. "It wasn't good, but… I don't remember the details. I was… I don't know. Different. Different clothes, different voice, and…a different age, I think. I feel like if I could be that person again…I could help you."

"Why?" He stared ahead at the path, feeling her eyes on him, trying to understand what she was thinking. "Why would that person help? Why can't you help me instead?"

"That person…" She shouldered her bag defensively. "He had a stand, I think."

"…I see." So that was how it was. "And you don't have one because you can't decide on a wish, right?"

"Well, yeah, but…" She shook her head. "I can't help thinking I've forgotten something important about that person. Something about their stand, that could solve this whole mystery in an instant. He is… I am…" Then she rubbed the back of her neck and smiled again. "Perhaps I'm thinking too much into it. It's only a dream, after all."

"Yeah," said Jotaro, not convinced. "Just a dream." (And hadn't he heard of something that could influence your dreams? Hadn't someone said something about that, a long time ago?)

Kyubey wound around the pink girl's neck and said nothing.

* * *

"All right," said Mami, hands on her hips, "I think I've found someone who can help you, Jotaro-kun."

Jotaro looked up from his lunch, at the bouncing ends of Mami's twin-tails. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiled at the three of them – Madoka, Sayaka, and himself – and waved a finger. "But – you all have to come on a hunt with me first! I'm talking to you girls, too!"

"Hunt? What? I don't want to get mixed up in – in whatever it is you magical girls do!"

"Oh, right." Mami's face fell. "You don't know. Or, rather, you don't remember." She sat down on the fence opposite them. "Magical girls – that is, magical people – hunt witches. It's how we keep out souls clean." She tapped her soul gem ring. "These gems can become over-saturated by our magic, and witches provide something to cleanse them." With a flourish, she produced a small black sphere that seemed to have been impaled on a large needle. "This is a grief seed. It ensures that our stands can work to their full capacity uninhibited."

"This is a lot more complicated than I remember."

 _Well, you don't remember a lot._ Kyubey crawled over Mami's lap, and she wagged a finger at him accusingly.

"You're such a naughty cat! Don't tease him!"

 _Anyway, when the grief seed is full, I dispose of it._

"Oh. Can you… show me the cleansing?"

Mami looked around, checking that the school rooftop was deserted apart from the four of them, then transformed her ring into its soul gem form. Carefully, she put the black object next to the gem; a small amount of black something floated from the gem into the seed, leaving the egg-like yellow jewel slightly brighter and more golden than before.

"See? That was from my battle with the witch yesterday." She put the two objects away again. "Your soul gem will start becoming darker on its own if you don't do anything, so it's important that you keep hunting to cleanse it. That's why I want you all with me – if we work together, we can get enough grief seeds for all of us while Jotaro-kun figures out his stuff. And…" She paused and gave a sad little half-shrug. "I've always wanted someone to fight alongside me, anyway."

Jotaro blinked and stared at her – or at least, at her shoulder. There was something about the way she had said that. Who was it that she reminded him of? Those curly twin-tails, like spiral pasta or something – there was something unnervingly familiar about her…

(and he had liked them, somehow, for their honesty and warmth, and the way he moved and thought so similarly -)

But Sayaka interrupted his thoughts. "We should have code names! Like a secret spy mystery team!"

"That's too many things at once…"

She ignored Madoka and pointed at Mami first. "We need names that disguise who we are, so… Mami-san, yours should be… [Kakyoin]!"

Mami laughed. "Kakyoin? That seems like an odd name."

But Jotaro found himself nodding along. "That name belongs with your Stand. It feels right, I think."

"Very well." She smiled a small half-smile and turned her head. "If you insist. Then, Sayaka-chan, you should be… ah… [Polnareff]."

"What kind of a name is that?"

"This was your idea, wasn't it? Your codename is Polnareff." Mami saw her face and giggled slightly. "Come on, it's actually kind of fun!"

Madoka smiled. "Then, what should we call Jotaro-kun?"

"Hmm…" Sayaka considered this carefully, then raised a finger in the air. "How about Star-man?"

"No, that doesn't work…" Madoka shook her head, her pink hair bouncing in the wind. "How about just [Jojo]?"

"Fine by me." He adjusted his hat and glanced sidelong at her. "Then I think Madoka-chan should be… let's see.."

"I think she should be [Joseph Joestar]!" declared Sayaka. "That sounds right."

"What? I – that's a longer name than any of yours!"

Jotaro frowned. "Joseph Joestar, huh? I… I think I knew someone by that name, once. It sounds like an obnoxious old man."

"Ah, no…"

"Well," said Mami, interrupting Madoka's protests, "now that we all have our codenames, let's talk about the person I'll take you to, after our hunt. I can't tell you her name yet, but she's a magical girl from a territory near here. I have to warn you know, she has what I'd call… a 'fiery' personality."

"What does she look like?" asked Sayaka thoughtfully. "And what codename should we give her?"

"You and your codenames, Sayaka-chan…" Mami sighed. "She has long red hair which she ties in a ponytail, but… the most distinctive feature about her is a pair of tattoos on her face."

"Tattoos?" Suddenly Madoka went pale. "Isn't she a little young?"

"She has a lot more experience than you lot, that's for certain." Mami hesitated. "Well, apart from Jotaro-kun, but none of us are really sure how much experience he has. Anyway," she put her index fingers up to her tear ducts, "her tattoos are red lines down her face, like so." The gesture, a wiggling motion from the corner of her eyes to the edges of her jawbone, reminded Jotaro of… dammit, he really was starting to get pissed off with the whole amnesia thing.

Madoka tipped her head and smiled. "Well, if that's the case, I think we should give her the codename [Avdol]. That seems appropriate."

"Mmm." To his own surprise, Jotaro nodded. It did seem right, somehow, just as all of their names had done.

"All right!" With a graceful motion, Mami stood up and gave them all a curtsey, earning a small giggle from Madoka. "I'll see you all after school. And… Madoka-chan?"

"Yes?"

"Try to think about your wish, if you can."

"Yes, Mami-san, I will."

"Good." With that, the golden girl was gone.


	5. Tomorrow's Courage

It was strange, sitting in a classroom again. He remembered that something about being in school had pissed him off, at one time or another; even now, he felt as if he didn't really need these lessons. He wasn't in the same class as the others – of course not, even Mami who seemed so mature was barely fifteen, a second year – so it felt oddly lonely sitting in class as a giant among them with his stand-out uniform. (Seriously, why was everyone in Japan so small?)

Such a pain… But Madoka said it was a good way of getting closer to potential magical people and maybe finding a solution for his amnesia. So, he put up with it. The classes, the people crowding around him and touching him out of nowhere and talking to him even when he clearly didn't want to, the teachers who talked down to him as if he was seven and who looked at him like he was an alien. Perhaps he was an alien, in a way.

He tried, really tried, not to get overwhelmed. And if his foot started tapping, or he started unconsciously moving side to side in his chair… well, it was only a few hours until they were done for the day. If he punched a guy for coming up behind him unexpectedly, it was the guy's own fault, wasn't it? If he walked out of class because he couldn't take it anymore, if he went to smoke on the school rooftop instead, that was normal, right? He wouldn't get detention; it was his first day and he was, as the teachers put it, "acclimatizing".

(It had been exactly the same before, even when he wasn't "acclimatizing". He remembered that, somehow.)

* * *

And, at the end of school, there he was at the agreed place, fiddling with the odd ring on his finger. He was still fucking stressed, even after spending an hour out on the roof calming himself. He just had to focus on the hunt, then he could meet this other magical girl, get a few clues, and go – wherever it was he was supposed to go. No problem. Fine. Great.

Sayaka arrived next, armed with a baseball bat – really? What kind of person brought a baseball bat to fight magical witches? – and a cocky attitude.

"So, Jotaro-kun. Sounds like you're already getting started on the whole fighting thing, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Ah, you're supposed to fight witches, not people, silly… You ready?"

"Yeah." Time to change the subject. "You don't seem like the wishing type. What's the deal?"

Her laugh faded on her lips and turned serious, an odd expression on her cheerful face. "It's… a private matter."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Ah, I don't mind telling you." She swung her bat round idly, and seemed to concentrate on something far away. "The truth is…I don't really remember what it is I wished for, even though it was only a few days ago. One minute I was normal, the next I could transform into a sword-wielding blue knight. I musta wished for something important, though. I put a lotta passion into it, I think."

"Hm." That was odd. First him, now Sayaka with memory loss. What was it about this place? And Madoka had had a weird dream, too. (Did it count as amnesia if it was a dream?) There was something fishy going on, and not in the good way either. This situation gave a bad name to fishy things everywhere.

The next to arrive was Madoka, with Kyubey in tow around her shoulders like a fancy scarf. "Are you two ready for the hunt?"

"Ready as I'll ever be!" Of course Sayaka was all smiling and happy and bloodthirsty again, as if she hadn't even heard of memory loss – or subtlety. "Where's Mami-san?"

Mami's voice echoed in their minds, just as Kyubey's normally did, and Jotaro felt a shiver run down his spine. _I'm on my way._ This wasn't natural.

 _We can communicate like this?_ He wasn't sure how he was even doing it, but maybe it was normal for magical people.

The creature Kyubey tipped his head. _Yes, I am allowing you to communicate telepathically with my magic._

"You didn't tell us that before, you slippery cat-bastard. You never told us any of this fucking shit. What else aren't you telling us, huh?" That was the most he'd had the energy to say all day, and it was only because he was really annoyed. (It wouldn't be fair to punch an animal. Only sadists did that, dammit.)

 _You didn't ask._

Damn. He bunched his fists. Animal or not, he was really going to –

"Hello, you three!" Mami skipped up to them with an apologetic look. "I was held up by a classmate. Let's go!"

* * *

The golden gem pulsed gently in her hands. "It's close by. Gems pulse when they're near magical activity, stronger when you're close. A skilled magic user can even tell the direction of the source. It's important that we defeat the witches quickly, as they spread discord and unnatural sicknesses wherever they go. We need to protect people from their evil."

"So what's the plan, Mami-san?" Sayaka hefted her bat. "Do you want us to attack from three sides at once, or maybe –"

Mami chuckled. "There is usually only one entrance to the witch' location. Sayaka-chan, since we know you've transformed at least once before, I'd like you to take charge of fighting its familiars. You two, however..." She nodded at Jotaro and Madoka. "Jotaro-kun, since I don't know anything about you or your stand, and you don't either, it's probably best to save your transformation for only the direst emergency. Madoka-chan, too; you two should watch and learn about what it is to be a magical person, so stay close to me and don't interfere, okay? I will take on the main witch for now. Is that understood?"

Madoka nodded and looked up at Jotaro. "It's only fair, right? The most inexperienced people should learn from the sempai."

"…yeah."

"Tomorrow," said Mami with finality, "you can show me your transformation, and maybe learn a little about it yourself. We'll all be together then, so…" She turned, to a small, wobbling irregularity in the air. "But, look. Here's the entrance to her barrier."


	6. Who Will Be the Judge?

They entered the witch's barrier, the plain run-down building morphing into a cave full of sweets and sticky foodstuffs. Their footsteps echoed through the brightly-coloured hallways, and a few needles flapped by on cotton gauze wings. She knew in her heart this wouldn't be easy, but she was the sempai here; she had to be brave and –

"Stop. Do not come any further."

Akemi Homura stood in front of them (how had she got there? She hadn't been there before), wearing an odd grey disc around her wrist. "There is a plot afoot here. If you value your life – your true, original life – you will turn back." The girl's purple eyes glared at Mami's shoulder, just like Jotaro's did. "I don't know why you're here, or why I'm here, but I know we shouldn't be doing this. We can't get out…" She shook her head, staring past them towards the entrance, losing all her focus. "We can't get out…"

Mami frowned and, with a small sigh, transformed into Hierophant Gold. "Okay, Homura-chan. Be calm. Maybe you should leave this to the rest of us, okay?"

Homura shook her head again and smiled, showing a pair of abnormally large canines. Like a vampire, or something. Suddenly her voice was different somehow, more… vibrant. She finally made eye contact, and Mami found herself wishing that she hadn't. "Oh, you can take the witch if you so desire. It will make it that much easier for me to achieve my goal. But… I warn you, you may regret it. Or, rather, you may _for_ get it." She looked down. "I don't remember what I'm doing here…"

Mami sighed and allowed her golden ribbon-like tentacles to wrap the dark-haired girl up. Homura offered no resistance, merely staring at the tendrils with an odd expression. "This witch is different from the others, Mami-san. You should be careful out there."

She glared at Homura for a moment, then without a second glance walked off down the corridor, leaving the rest of them to follow along in her wake. Homura simply stared blankly ahead.

They really were similar, her and Jotaro. But… somehow Homura reminded Mami of someone else, as well. Someone with an ominous past and a connection to her own life, like… an old boss or a friend. (But that was crazy. She didn't have any friends.)

(She thought of Jotaro, and wondered why she felt a connection to a complete stranger.)

"You know," said Sayaka, thoughtfully, "we never did come up with a codename for Homura-chan. Any ideas?"

Madoka shuddered, and hugged Kyubey closer to her chest. "She… seems crazy, but I have a feeling some of what she said is true. It feels kinda creepy, so she needs a big, creepy name, like… [DIO]."

DIO. The name sent a shiver down their spines, the air suddenly seeming a lot cooler than it had been. A name of great mystery and power, as of one who had rejected their humanity… and yet, was that weakling half-mad girl a suitable carrier for such a name? Somehow, her dark hair and small frame seemed not to fit with a name with such an aura.

Damn and blast, there was no time for thoughts like this. Best to move on. "We're here. The witch hasn't noticed us yet, but… I think there are familiars around. Sayaka-chan?"

Sayaka nodded, and turned around to the left, into a gallery that surrounded the witch. A moment later, the soft _thunk_ of a baseball bat told them she had found her first target.

"Madoka-chan, Jotaro-kun. Watch me and learn, okay?"

The two of them nodded. Hierophant Gold turned away and burst through the doors, jumping down into the central room. (Her soul felt odd; she felt uncomfortable in open spaces like this, but she had no choice.) The witch, a small red doll-like figure on a high chair surrounded by cake stands, sat limply and stared out into the void.

Two of Hierophant Gold's tentacles twisted, then morphed into a pair of long, intricately decorated muskets; she took one in each hand and shot them, one after another at the witch. The doll shook with the rebounds. Mami began to summon more of them, first five, then ten, then dozens, taking shot after shot, and sometimes all at once with a cry of "Unlimited Musket Splash!"

And then she turned to her two hangers-on as Hierophant Gold, and asked them, "Should I do my special move?"

"Special move?"

Hierophant Gold winked at them coquettishly, and a much larger ribbon-tentacle began to form. Slowly, it twisted up into what looked like a giant cannon, aimed at the small and helpless doll.

"No witch can just deflect this!"

A breath. "Golden Splash Finale!"

There was a boom. The cannon unravelled, and Hierophant Gold gave a curtsy. The witch convulsed, once, and opened its wide, unnatural mouth.

"Something's wrong." Jotaro pointed at the witch. "What's that coming out of its mouth?"

"Mami-san, get out of the way! Something's coming!"

A black beast reared up from somewhere inside the doll – how did it all fit? – and stared at Hierophant Gold hungrily. Mami was halfway through transforming – her head stuck up from the green-tentacled body – and she looked up at the monster just one moment too late.

It ate her.

* * *

Fuck.

"Oh my god…" Madoka stared in horror beside him. "What do we do? Where's Sayaka-chan? Oh my god…"

The lower half of Mami's body dropped to the ground. The black monster bent down to finish its meal.

Jotaro stared, and tried to remember how you were supposed to transform. It was easy, right? He wasn't sure.

"Tch. She's dead, huh?" Homura was standing next to them, fiddling with her grey disc. "Guess fighting one witch won't hurt."

Then, in the space of a breath, she was standing on the tall tea-table, staring at the slowly undulating black behemoth. "Look over here, monster."

The black thing looked up, staring at the dark-haired girl curiously. It bit down, breaking the legs of the tea-tables into splinter without even thinking about it.

"Over here. Are you sure you bit the right place?" Homura tipped her head from the top of an impossibly high cake-stand. It bit down again.

"Useless. What a useless witch." She turned her back on the leviathan from yet another cake-stand. It chomped down once more.

She landed daintily on the last remaining high chair. "And now, I would like you to explode, if you would be so good."

On cue, a large explosion rocked the snake-like black beast, quickly followed by a second. A small smirk appeared on Homura's face.

The third, largest explosion shook the whole foundations of the barrier, blowing the gigantic witch's head to smithereens and spreading pieces of black something to every corner of the room.

The barrier weakened, wobbled, and at last disappeared altogether. Sayaka, appearing from behind where there had been a pillar before, looked around in confusion; the other two stared at Homura. She caught the falling grief seed in her hand and stared at it vaguely.

"Homura-chan…" Madoka's voice was shaking. "Mami-san…"

The purple-eyed girl looked up. "Mami-san, or [Kakyoin], as you seem to have named her, is dead. She will remain that way unless…" She grinned, showing those pointed incisors once again. "Unless you find a way out of here."

"Out of where, exactly?" This mad girl was being too vague, too annoying. He was starting to get pissed off. "How do you know all this?"

Homura shrugged. "I don't know. The thought just occurred to me, as if I suddenly remembered it. But…hah…" She shook her head. "I don't know how to get out. The only other thing I just remembered…" With a cool, calculating attitude, she pointed at the three of them. "You three are my enemies. And if I figure this out, you're on your own."

With that, she was gone, as if she'd never been there in the first place. Beside him, Madoka dropped to her knees.

"Mami-san…"


	7. That Would be Truly Wonderful

They did not go to 'Avdol'. None of them even knew where to find her. Instead, they went home, quietly, with dazed faces and swirling minds. After a few minutes, Sayaka split off and made her own way home; he barely noticed her go, but vaguely felt he should go after her. He didn't, and stayed with Madoka.

There was something bothering Jotaro about Homura's Stand, on top of everything that had happened. Something important. But… what? Dammit, why was everything so hazy? He lit a cigarette and tried to think.

"Jotaro-kun!" Madoka's voice was horrified, as if he'd just tried to kill her mother. "Isn't smoking unhealthy?"

"None of your business. I need to think after… that."

She sighed. "Well, I suppose I can't blame you for feeling bad. I can't believe… Mami-san, we only just met her and now..."

"Yeah."

She wiped her face gently and sniffed. "If we could get her back…"

 _You could wish for her back._ Kyubey twirled around her shoulders. (And he was another one that seemed to show up out of thin air. What was it with people doing that?) _I could grant you that, if you so desired._

"I…" Madoka hesitated. "No, I don't think wishing for her back will do any good. As Homura said, she's gone for good, and that sort of wish never ends well. I mean, look at Sayaka-chan."

"What happened with her?"

She smiled sadly. "She…regrets her wish, I think."

"What wish?"

"Ah, it's… not my place to say." With a delicate hand, she rubbed the back of her neck. "And I wasn't there, so I'm not sure of the exact wording."

"I see." He fiddled with the golden chain hanging from his collar. "Something to do with wishing someone back?"

"Yeah." The pink-haired girl smiled. "And now she transforms into Blue Chariot and has to fight witches for grief seeds, and even though she likes the fighting… I think the person she wished back was… uncooperative. Unhappy with her meddling in fate."

"Hm." Jotaro nodded and turned away. Somehow, a story like that seemed right for a person like 'Polnareff', the girl who brought a baseball bat to a witch fight. A wish that had its consequences…

A thought flickered through his head, and he blinked. Oh. _Oh_.

"Are you okay, Jotaro-kun?"

"Yeah, I… I think I just remembered what my wish was." He bowed his head, watching the pavement go by beneath his feet.

"That's good, Jotaro-kun! Maybe it'll provide you with a clue!"

 _I would also be interested in hearing this, Jotaro._

He looked sidelong at the cat-thing and grunted noncommittally. No way was he going to tell that weird-looking cat bastard what was up. Madoka seemed to catch on to his thoughts and waved her hands.

"Ah, it's probably personal! We shouldn't intrude!"

"No, it's fine," he heard himself say, frowning even as the words left his mouth, "I think you – Madoka-chan, at least – you need to hear it. Kyubey can piss off."

The long-white ears twitched, jingling those floating golden rings. _I understand_. With a swish of his tail, he scampered off into the dark.

Jotaro waited a few moments, took one last puff of his cigarette, then flicked the butt away. "I wished… I wished for my mother to be healed."

"You mother?" Madoka put a gentle hand up to his sleeve, a careful gesture of support that wasn't anything like the people who came up behind him at school. He almost flinched away, even so.

"She had been affected by… a witch, I suppose. If they spread sickness. I wished that she would become well."

"Ah…yes. I see." She put a hand to her own cheek and began to stroke it, as if running her fingers through an imaginary beard. "You know, I think I remember something like that as well." Her fingers tapped one by one against her cheek. "I… that is, the person that I dreamed I was… he wished for something similar, I think. _I_ wished for something similar, in my dream."

She let go of his sleeve – finally – and held up her hand, a smooth, delicate hand without any scars, and started absent-mindedly cracking the knuckles. The sound was... mechanical, almost. Familiar, as if something like this had happened before, a long time ago. Her face turned away from him, and she sighed. "I wished for the health of my daughter."

Daughter? "Aren't you a little bit –"

"Young? I don't know. In my dream, I had a daughter, and I wished for her to be well. I wished beyond anything in the world…" Her hand closed. "I don't know if the wish came true." A tear rolled down her cheek. "Perhaps… perhaps she died, after all…"

"She's not dead." Jotaro looked out at the darkened streets of Mitakihara City, and tried to ignore the tears pricking at his own vision. Pathetic. "I know it. She's not dead yet."

Madoka sniffed. "I know. She isn't. Thank you, Jotaro-kun."

He pulled his hat down over his forehead and said nothing.

* * *

Sayaka stayed out that night, hunting witches and familiars indiscriminately. A cleanse with a grief seed, a sword slash, a knock with a baseball bat.

 _That_ was for Mami. _This_ was for Mami. _That_ was revenge on the big old bug-eyed monster. And this… this took the pain away again, fading the image of Mami's corpse in her mind one grief seed at a time. She had no brother nor sister. No father nor mother. No lovers. And… none of _them_ , either. What had they been called? Allies, comrades, or….? She didn't know and she didn't care. All that mattered was another slash, another grief seed to wipe everything away.

And when she was done and couldn't stand upright anymore, she slept soundly, her soul gem clear and bright, like an unbreakable blue diamond.


	8. I Command Your Very Souls

The next day dawned. The sky was a beautiful cloudless blue, and once again Jotaro walked with Madoka to school. (It was nice, not to have a bunch of silly girls crowding around him; maybe she was scaring them away.) She seemed to have recovered a little from the shock of last night, and occasionally made a small, off-hand comment pointing out the trees or the sky or someone she knew. It was a nice enough distraction.

"You know, I haven't seen Hitomi-chan in a while. I think when she saw us together yesterday she assumed…" Madoka blushed a deep pink, even brighter than her hair. "You know. That we're… dating or something."

Jotaro frowned, tugging his hat down over his eyes. "Well, it's none of her goddamn business, whoever she is."

"Ah, it doesn't matter." She smiled, shrugging. "I don't think of you that way."

"Likewise."

Her hands stroked Kyubey as the little creature wound around her neck. (Again. The thing was obsessed with her.) "You're more like a… brother to me, like Tatsuya. Or…" A little, hesitant laugh. "You know, maybe even like a grandson!"

He grunted. "Good grief. Aren't I older than you? I'm in a higher class…"

"Oh, are you, _sempai_?" She grinned at him slyly, with an expression much different from her usual open smile. "And you're bigger than me, too. Oh, dear. Next you're going to say you can overpower me in a fight, as well…" She took a deep breath, bunching up her fists, then dissolved into a fit of giggles. "Ah, your face! I nearly fooled you…"

"Shut up." Despite everything, a small smile managed to cross his lips briefly. "I'm only playing along to humour you… old man Madoka."

Madoka hunched over, pretending to be old and decrepit. "Oh, Jotaro-kun, your uncle Tatsuya and I are so proud!"

"Honestly." He shook his head. "I don't even have an uncle." A shrug. "Well, probably."

She smiled and put her hands up, in a gesture that could have meant anything. "Who knows?"

* * *

 _Sayaka appears to have slept in today. She was out late last night, but I believe she plans to go out again even so._ The beast cat swished its tail. _In fact, I believe she is likely to come to the meeting place this afternoon._

Madoka nodded. "Well, we'll go then. She needs some company after what happened. Besides, we might happen upon this 'Avdol' girl or some other magical person who can help you, right?"

"Yeah."

"And… speaking of hunting…" The wide, pink eyes strayed to the ring on his finger. "Has your gem darkened much since yesterday?"

"I don't know." He held out his hand to try and inspect it, but the ring was too small to be able to tell. "Is that bad?"

Kyubey tipped his head. _If you don't keep your gem purified, terrible things will happen!_

Jotaro grunted, and stared at the ring intently, willing it to transform into its egg shape. It stayed the same.

"Jotaro-kun…" Madoka looked at him nervously. "Do you actually know how to use your magic?"

He shrugged. "I can probably pick it up as I go along."

The cat-thing and the girl stared at him.

 _You really have lost all your memory, haven't you?_

"Well… I guess."

"Maybe you should ask Sayaka or this 'Avdol' girl for some tips?" suggested Madoka, looking at the ring regretfully.

"It's my ring, isn't it? I should be able to control it." He concentrated on the ring and tried to imagine it turning into a gem.

 _You need to actually put magic in, you know._

"Right." He sent a surge of magic – where did that come from? – into the ring, and at last it turned into a small, roundish gem, with a golden base and a delicate, many-pointed star on top. As for the egg itself…

"That gem looks like Homura's eyes," commented Madoka thoughtfully. "Up till now I thought soul gems were supposed to match your eyes or your hair or both. That's not either."

"Tch." He frowned. "Maybe it's just the colour of your Stand."

 _In Jotaro's case, his hair and eyes don't match, so yes, I would imagine this colour is the colour of his Stand._ The cat-thing sniffed at the egg. _This one is fine, for now, although you may need to start hunting for grief seeds soon. The longer you wait, the worse it gets._

"The worse… what gets?" He folded his arms and frowned at the creature. "Tell me."

 _The pain. Grief seeds take away grief. Hence the name._

Goddamn cryptic alien thing. He tipped his head in return. "I'll keep that in mind."


	9. Blue Chariot

She was walking, always walking. She didn't really remember why she had to walk, but it was important, right? And she had to keep the black thing and the blue thing close by. Those were important too. There was a place she had to go to, probably. There were people she had to fight.

One, specific person she had to fight. (Where was he? Who was he?)

She had to do this, no matter what anyone said. And she had to keep going, had to keep walking and –

"Sayaka-chan! Are you all right?" Pink. Ribbons. Friend.

"Ma-madoka. And…you?" Black. Hat. Muscles. Unreasonably tall. "Who are you?"

The black hat boy – man? – stared uncomfortably at her shoulder. "Um. We talked yesterday. You were there."

"What's your name?" She couldn't help staring; she had definitely never met anyone like this. She would remember, right? "I don't remember ever meeting you."

"Come on, Sayaka-chan." Madoka, comforting familiar Madoka, took hold of her shoulder. "It's Jotaro-kun, remember? The guy who fell into our class?"

"I'm…" She felt her fingers twisting around the blue thing and the black thing. "I'm going hunting, Madoka-chan. You can come with me, if you like. Hermit Pink is pretty useful for finding witches."

"Hermit Pink?" She looked confused, blank, as if – oh, god, she'd forgotten Hermit Pink. How could she have forgotten Hermit Pink? She grasped Sayaka's shoulder a little tighter in her hand, and asks the expected question. "What is Hermit Pink?"

'Jotaro-kun' rumbles. (It feels weird, to think of such a mountain of delinquent muscle so familiarly. Surely, he should be '-san', or maybe 'oh fuck'.) "It's your Stand, Madoka-chan."

Whatever Sayaka expected from such a mass of anger and black, it wasn't for him to be on first name terms with Madoka, of all people. She was a good girl, didn't get mixed up in delinquency or… that type of person. (And the guy addressed her more gently than she expected, too, with a '-chan' rather than a 'bitch'. That was weird.)

Madoka looked up at the big guy in confusion. "My… Stand? I don't have a –"

"The stand you would have, if you had one. Or something." The way he blurted it out was almost cute, if she ignored the fact that he could probably punch her through a building. He… was he actually awkward, all along? But… hold on.

"You mean, you _don't_ have one? But I thought… How did you get rid of - ?" She trailed off and stared at Madoka. The pink-haired girl stared into the distance, thinking deeply.

"Hermit Pink…" She held up her left hand. A perfectly normal hand, like her other one. The fingers moved, and she began to click the joints, one by one. It was an awful habit. "That was the name of my Stand in my dream… now why didn't I remember that before?"

"But why don't you have it anymore? How - ?" She knew, or thought she knew, what the answer was. "You'd forgotten it. Everyone in this city has forgotten something. Important stuff. I can't… I have to get going." She shook her head. It didn't matter whether Madoka came with her, whether Madoka had a Stand or not. She was going. She had to. "I have to go. I have to avenge my sister."

"Your sister?" The delinquent – 'Jotaro-kun' – looked at her shoulder again. "Were you and Mami-san related?"

That was a cruel joke, talking about some random stranger when her sister, her _actual sister,_ was dead, dishonoured, in need of her perfect knight to come and save her, to be her vengeance and fury across the grave. "Who's that?" She looked up, deliberately, into his sea-green eyes, making sure to put as much acidity as she could into her expression. (He looked away quickly. Damn. She was _good_ at this.) "I'm talking about my sister, dammit, and if you get in my way I'll murder you."

With that, she wrenched herself free of Madoka's clutches – gently, because Madoka didn't deserve to get hurt – and turned to go. She was going to kill a witch.

* * *

Sayaka stepped into the little alleyway. "Here." She nodded at them. "My soul gem feels a magical presence here. I don't need your help."

There was a blue flash, and she began to transform; despite himself, Jotaro watched and tried to note the differences in style between her and Mami. He saw a blue, compact helmet before –

"Stop right there!" A large spearhead, sizzling slightly, embedded itself in the road by Sayaka's feet. The three of them looked up.

A girl stood at the end of the alleyway, her face in shadow, holding the other end of the spear. There were several meters of diamond-shaped chain connecting the two ends. Red flames licked around the girl's body, highlighting her short shorts and comfortable hoodie. Her hair flickered around her, merging with the burning red around her.

"What you are doing is unwise, Miki Sayaka. The cards foretell an unhappy future if you continue on this path."

The three of them stared at her. At last, Sayaka broke the ice. "H-how did you know my name?"

A white smile appeared on the stranger's overshadowed face, bringing to mind Cheshire cats and unsettling memories. "You could say… I know the future." She looked up, and Madoka and Jotaro took in breath.

"Avdol!"


	10. Magician's Scarlet

The girl grinned. Just as Mami had described, her cheeks were decorated with a pair of wiggly red lines; her matching hair, fluttering around her head and mixing with the flames, was tied into a long ponytail with a black ribbon, which she had also tied around her forehead in a kind of turban.

"Do you guys… know each other?" Sayaka looked from one to the other, her transformation dispelled in her confusion.

"Never met these people in my life," said 'Avdol' cheerfully. "They must have me confused for someone else. You, however…"

"What about me?"

"You were fighting and continuously replenishing your soul gem for hours last night," the girl said, taking out a packet of chocolate snacks from her pocket. "You remember that, right? The fighting?"

"Y-yeah…"

"Tch. Figures." She looked at the three of them and ate one of the snacks meditatively. "You should consider giving it a rest. Go to school, or whatever. Take a bit of time away from those grief seeds." With her free hand, she held up her egg-shaped gem. The red stone already had a few dark clouds on it and looked more like an active volcano than a pretty jewel with all the flames flickering around it.

"You can't be serious." In response, Sayaka presented her utterly pure blue gem, the same colour as the sky, and scoffed. "You really think I would allow myself to be corrupted like that?"

"Who is it who's being corrupted?" The girl's dark red eyes bored into Sayaka. "Do you even remember what you started fighting for?"

"For my sister, goddammit!" Sayaka began to shake. "She – died –" A pause, a small sob. "She died, and these two don't even know who she is! Madoka-chan –" She pointed to the pink-haired girl. "Madoka-chan, my close friend, doesn't remember her. Jotaro-kun –" she moved her accusing finger upwards – "never even heard of her!"

"Sayaka-chan, you're acting crazy…" Madoka laid a hand on her shoulder once again. "Please…"

"No! I need to keep fighting!" She clutched her soul gem tightly in her fist. "And if that means I have to beat the shit out of some redhead who strays in my territory, so be it!"

'Avdol' sighed. "I thought you might say something like that. Very well." She ate another chocolate snack, then stuffed the pack back in her pocket. "You two, please stay out of this."

She began her transformation. For a moment, a large bright flame licked over her, burning its imprint into their eyes, flickering aggressively as she transformed. Jotaro blinked. Her Stand stood in her place: a muscled masculine torso and arms, with a bird's head and a red-feathered lower body. The last remaining flames flickered around her wrists and ankles.

"Magician's Red…" Jotaro rubbed his forehead and frowned. Why did he associate that name with that form? Why, when he looked at that completely strange body, was he reminded of prison bars and gunshots? Why was everything here so achingly familiar? He pulled down the brim of his cap and bunched his fists uselessly. If he could just… remember…

"Eh? You know her Stand name?" Madoka turned to him. "Or… is it a memory?"

"The second." He gritted his teeth. "That person…"

"My name in this form is Magician's Scarlet, actually, but you were close. Do you know me, then, Jotaro-kun?" The massive bird-headed Stand gave a mocking curtsy. "You have the advantage of me, I'm afraid. Perhaps we can discuss the subject further after I have defeated this rookie fool."

"Fine."

"Wait, though, Jotaro-kun, Avdol, I don't want Sayaka to be hurt!"

"Don't worry, Pinky," grinned 'Avdol'. "Her magic will heal her if I don't damage her soul gem. It might even be good for her."

"All right, bird brain!" Sayaka held up the other object in her hand. A grief seed. "I'll take you on, for this."

"Don't want it."

"Then you can have my gem instead." Sayaka put the grief seed on the ground and held up her gem. "But I predict you will not get it."

"Predictions, eh?" The bird-person put a sharp-nailed finger to its cheek. "I look forward to seeing how that turns out for you."

The blue soul gem in Sayaka's hand glowed. Something surrounded her body for a few moments; then, in her place. stood an armoured knight, clad all in blue with only a pair of yellow eyes showing from inside an enclosed helmet.

This time, Madoka was the one to identify the name of the Stand: she'd seen it before. "Blue Chariot… This is really getting serious." She looked up at Jotaro and smiled. "It feels weird not to be doing anything, right? We should leave them to it."

He shrugged. "This 'Avdol' said she might talk to us afterwards. We should stay."

"We don't even know her real name…"

The two Stands jumped towards each other. Blue Chariot – shouldn't it be silver? – drew its sword, while Magician's Scarlet crossed its arms in front of its chest. The flames on the bird-man's wrists grew, spewing out in a fountain of fire towards Sayaka, who leapt over them with the skill of a dancer. A volley of smaller flames came next, deflected quickly by the blue-armoured knight's rapier.

And then it was Sayaka attacking, lunging forward with swipe after swipe towards Magician's Scarlet, who dodged and blocked and parried with tongues of flame.

She – it was very difficult to call a half-naked bird-man a she – seemed to be beginning to flag a little bit, working her way around to the right of the constantly attacking chariot. An errant tendril of flame spilled out – and licked at the handle of the chain-linked spear, still stuck in the ground from earlier. Sayaka ignored it, kept attacking; 'Avdol', whatever her real name was, kept defending and moving around, a little at a time.

And then – she picked up the spear and, with a flourish, pointed in in Sayaka's face.

"Yield now, Miki Sayaka."

"Tch." The blue knight put her blade up to meet the spear. "Even if you covered this in flames I could still deflect it."

"That was not my intention." Flames shot down the shaft of the spear, funnelling off the point onto Blue Chariot's rapier, channelling down her hand and over her entire body.

"Now will you yield, Miki Sayaka? Now you are clothed in flames?"

"NEVER! I'm doing this for my sister!"

The bird-person tipped her head. "What is it, exactly, that you're accomplishing for your sister? Dying in order to join her? Picking useless fights?"

Sayaka gave 'Avdol' another swipe with her sword, but her heart wasn't in it. She sagged, the flames beginning to eat away at her.

"De-transform, Miki Sayaka. De-transform and I will stop the flames, and you and your friends can talk to me. De-transform and the pain goes away."

"Pain…" Yellow eyes burned beneath Sayaka's blue visor. "Pain is knowing your sister is dead, and you couldn't stop it. Pain is when –" she winced – "real stuff happens. This body is only physical. True pain lasts forever."

"I guarantee, Miki Sayaka, you will not feel that pain of losing your sister forever. If you do not transform, however, you will be in pain for the rest of your life, because you will burn to death."

In response, there was only the sound of Sayaka gritting her teeth.

"Well, it's a shame." The bird-headed stand turned away from her and looked towards Madoka and Jotaro. "I'm sorry about this, but she's being very persistent. A few more minutes perhaps should do it."

"How… How dare you?" Madoka was shaking, her small fists bunched up with rage; she glared at the chicken person angrily. "This isn't the kind of behaviour that befits a magical person! Even though she provoked you with her predictions –"

The avian eyes gave her a long, hard stare. "This is necessary. She has to learn. And, to be honest, if she wanted to defeat me with fortune-telling –"

"She's ten years too early. We get it." Jotaro frowned. "But this is too much."

"Huh? How did you know I would say that?"

He stared at the muscled Stand's chest for a while. "Déjà vu, I guess."

"Well, anyway," interrupted Madoka, standing on tiptoes to try and get on the same level as the other two, "this is too cruel. Mami-san would never do something like this."

"Mami-san?" Suddenly the fires around the struggling Sayaka went out, and 'Avdol' de-transformed into the redheaded girl with face tattoos. "You don't mean Tomoe Mami, do you?"

"Oh… Mami-san…" Sayaka de-transformed suddenly and crumpled into a ball on the ground; a tear ran down her bare face. "How could I forget… She's dead, Mami-san's dead, I remember… oh, god, I remember everything…" She grabbed at the grief seed, which had rolled towards her, and held it to her darkened gem. "I don't need to know…" The black fog lifted, and her face went blank again.

'Avdol' stared. Then, she turned to the other two and frowned. "Well, you two need to explain some stuff, I think. Come on, I need a snack."

They nodded, reluctantly, and followed her out of the alleyway.


	11. The Birth of a Superbeing!

"So… You're the people that Mami said she was bringing to see me, huh?" Sakura Kyouko stared hard at the three of them. A pink girl, a cute blue girl, and a frankly terrifying giant. She wasn't gonna let on that she was scared, obviously. She was gonna eat her apple and some Rocky and give them all a death glare. She took a bite of her apple. "You're the ones that need my help figuring out what's going on with Jotaro-kun here?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Pink Madoka, the friendliest-looking and probably sanest of all of them, nodded. "We don't have much to go on, but maybe you know something."

"Hmm." It was true, the big guy didn't really look like he belonged here, and Kyouko had a feeling there was a reason for that, but… "It's tricky. I may dabble in Tarot and such, but I'm not all-knowing." She looked around at the shopping mall, still busy even though it was getting towards closing time. It was probably safe enough to talk about this kind of shit here. "Can you tell me more about that Homura girl? The one you codenamed [DIO]? Describe her."

"Crazy." That was a bit much, coming from Mr. Insane Muscles Delinquent, but she let it slide. "With some sort of teleportation or illusion Stand."

"I mean –" another careful bite of the apple – "how she looks. Hair and stuff."

Madoka seemed to think about it for a moment. Did she know the girl or not? "She has purple eyes, black hair, she's about my size. Very serious when she's not being… double minded."

"Hmm." She shook her head. "Then I've met her, I think. A few days ago. She wanted me to join her or something. Seemed sane enough then."

"Maybe she's been fighting so long she went crazy?"

The big guy pulled down the brim of his cap. He did that a lot, for some reason. "She seemed different yesterday, though. More focused, like she'd remembered something in the middle of her fight."

Now that was interesting: Kyouko leaned forward onto the table, putting the tips of her fingers together. "It sounds like something I've had a suspicion of for a while now: using our magic brings back our memories somehow, just a little bit. A while ago, I forgot to cleanse my gem, and I remembered that my background isn't in the Church but in fortune-telling. That's just an example. I still don't know how I could have forgotten such a large part of my identity, but… concerning Homura, perhaps her subconscious rebelled against the lack of memory, and split her up so she seemed insane. Then after she used her magic once again, she remembered something about who she really is."

"That's true." Big Jotaro tapped his fingers against the table, and Kyouko had to restrain herself from trying to see if it made any dents. "She suddenly remembered she was our enemy."

"I see."

"That still doesn't solve the case of how Jotaro-kun got here or anything," pouted Madoka. "Unless he deliberately uses magic to get his memory back."

"Yeah, no, that's not a good idea." She knew that. For a fact. "Fighting witches or even other magical people is dangerous. I mean, look at what I did to… Sayaka-chan, was it?" She gestured to where the cute girl was sitting.

 _Had_ been sitting.

Fuck. "Wait, where'd she go?"

"Oh, no…"

"Good grief."

* * *

 _She can't have gone far,_ thought the girl called Sakura Kyouko. _Stay in touch with telepathy._

They had split up, each taking a different direction, and Jotaro sighed. He'd barely known these girls for, what, a couple of days? And he'd only just met Kyouko. To be running around after them like this…

He looked back down at his ring. It really felt… wrong that Stands had to be controlled in this way. But then… what was right? Was it brooches? Magic wands? Fucking pens or some shit?

He transformed the ring into its soul gem form. That, at least, was easy after the first time.

It was purple: the same shade as Homura's eyes. What was her codename again? DIO? That didn't sit well; Jotaro had a feeling he should be fighting her rather than chasing after Sayaka.

He noticed it had a few little shadows, just around the edges. Was that all there was from transforming it twice? At this rate it would take him weeks to regain all of his memory…. Dammit. He knew, somehow, that time was limited. The only problem was, he couldn't remember his actual objective – whether he had even had an objective in this godforsaken city. Was he even supposed to be here?

 _Madoka-chan, Jotaro-kun, come quickly. I found her._

He rolled his eyes and turned back again, breaking into a jog. Madoka's voice echoed in his head in response to the call:

 _Where are you?_

He felt – and saw – his soul gem begin to pulse with light as he ran in the direction that Kyouko had gone. It didn't sound good on her end. (But why was he doing this? They were strangers.)

 _Cairo Street. Hurry. She's – Sayaka, no!_ Kyouko's thoughts changed suddenly, targeted now towards the presumably confused Sayaka. (That place name. He knew it was significant, but how?)

 _I… don' wanna… remember anymore…_ Lost, cold, hollow thoughts, like someone at the very edge of despair. Kyouko began to sound more frantic.

 _Don't use another grief seed! You've used them too much already!_

A flicker of something showed in the soul gem. He sped up, feeling the magical pulse from Sayaka start to change.

 _I'm sorry, Avdol._

There was an extra-large pulse on the soul gem. Jotaro shuddered instinctively, just as he rounded the corner onto Cairo Street. He slowed down and looked around. There was an old public building, some sort of bus station, at the end of the road; the two girls were nowhere to be seen.

 _Sayaka-chan, no…_

He heard panting behind him. Madoka had managed to catch up, her face flushed the same colour as her hair.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know." Jotaro indicated the bus station and frowned. "I think the signal's coming from inside that building."

"You're… using your magic!" She sounded out of breath, and as if she wasn't sure whether to be happy or upset. "Well, never mind. I don't want Sayaka-chan to get hurt."

He nodded, once; they set off together, towards the building. A menacing aura filled the air.

 _Kyouko-chan, where are you?_

A small witch's barrier appeared, opening up on the wall of the building. _In here. Madoka, if you come quick we might be able to remind her of who she really is._

Jotaro blinked. _What happened?_

 _Sayaka-chan…_ There was a pause from Kyouko's end, as if she'd sighed aloud. _She's turned into a witch._


	12. A Girl Possessed by an Evil Spirit

They entered the witch's barrier.

Violin music, faint but familiar, echoed from somewhere in the distance; posters from an upcoming show, written in some incomprehensible language, lined the walls. Some of the pictures featured a single oddly-shaped red earring, like one half of a broken heart.

But Sayaka didn't wear earrings… did she? Where had he seen that shape before? It was on the tip of his tongue…

"Ah, thank goodness." Kyouko jumped up from where she had been crouching, one ear to the wall. Her skin seemed just a shade darker in the dim and dusty light. "I don't think she's noticed us yet. We might have a chance to… to change her back."

"How?" It seemed odd to see Madoka so distraught, her lips trembling, and Jotaro almost felt her emotions reflecting onto him. (Strong feelings always did that to him. He couldn't stand it. It was probably too enclosed to light up a cigarette too, dammit.) "How could this have happened?"

Kyouko shook her head. "Ask Kyubey, wherever he is. My best guess is that… if you continue to wipe away the shadows on your soul, more will be revealed, and the bad feelings will come back stronger and fresher. I think there's a limit to how much you can wipe away before…"

 _Before you become a witch._ Kyubey jumped up onto Madoka's shoulder (where had he been all this time?). _That is correct. However, the fewer grief seeds you use, the more pain you will be in._

"What _kind_ of pain, dammit?" Surprisingly, it was Kyouko who slammed her fist into the wall first, rather than him; he felt as though his last safe outlet was being taken away from him and ground his teeth. Kyouko seemed to ignore it. "I'm halfway corrupted, dammit, and I don't feel anything!"

Kyubey tipped his head, staring into Kyouko's soul, and swished his tail. _Are you sure, Kyouko? You seem a little conflicted._

She looked up, her face suddenly filled with horror. (Jotaro, without any context, thought he hadn't seen her eating anything since entering the barrier.)

"My god…" Her cheeks twitched, bringing the squiggly lines on her face to life like a pair of captured snakes. "So that's how it is."

"What is it, Kyouko-chan?" Madoka reached out for the girl hesitantly, "Have you figured something out?"

With a shake of her head, Kyouko turned away. "When you next see Homura-chan, ask her about her true body. I'll… I'll explain later, if – if I can." She shouldered her weapon. "First, the witch."

* * *

There was a pulse of noise. Somewhere in the depths of her barrier, the witch that had once been Sayaka had noticed their presence. The hallway – the hallway got shorter all at once, like an accordion folding in on itself. A pair of double doors flung themselves open, close enough that the breeze ruffled Jotaro's hair in passing.

And… there she was. A monster ten times the size of Jotaro at least, with a fishy tail and what looked like the upper body of Blue Chariot, mangled just enough that it took him a moment to notice the similarity. It conducted an orchestra of who-knows-how-many violinists, a bent rapier serving as a conductor's baton; behind its neck, a red collar fanned out in the shape of a heart, with a jagged line going down the middle like those earrings on the posters. A monster. Sayaka was a monster.

"Madoka-chan." For a moment, Kyouko seemed hesitant, but the thought cleared. "You know her better. If anyone can change her back… I'll keep her familiars off your back."

Madoka nodded, grim-faced. "I'll do my best."

"Jotaro-kun…" The red-haired girl sighed. "There was something else you needed to know about this city. Something I learned with fortune telling, but…"

"You can't remember." He glowered. "Of course."

She shrugged, her face becoming resigned once more. "I'll probably remember once I've used a bit more magic. Just…" She sighed. "I think the one you call DIO is figuring it out as well. Be on your guard."

"Same to you."

She nodded calmly, and turned away to face the witch. "Madoka-chan, get talking."

"Er – right!" A shiver; Madoka cleared her throat delicately and took a confident stance to look up at the faceless nightmare. "S-sayaka-chan! Can you hear me?"

The thing waved its arms, and a trio of cogs flew down from somewhere in the ceiling, straight towards Madoka: in a flash, Kyouko had transformed and was fighting them off. The bird head cawed with exhilaration. "Keep going!"

"Sayaka-chan, I know you're in there! Please remember! Remember who you really are, deep inside! You don't have to be this way!"

A roar. It sounded as though two people were screaming together at the top of their lungs, as if they were both shouting to be heard over the sound of the monster, but in the midst of the rising music it was hard to tell what was being said. Jotaro crouched down with one hand to the ground, listening to Madoka plead with her friend.

"Sayaka-chan, it's me, Madoka! We know each other! Your Stand is Blue Chariot and your wish was –" she hesitated – "your wish was for Kyousuke-kun to be healed, I think…" She frowned, ignoring the renewed roars and attacks for the beast. "Actually, I can't remember exactly… Today you said something about your sister, but… I know you're an only child, Sayaka. You were probably thinking of Mami-san, who took us under her wing like an older sister. But…"

Another roar. One of the cogs sliced at Kyouko, cutting deep into her forearm. Madoka flinched, but continued on with a shaky voice. "I don't know which version of you is really true! Please, Sayaka-chan, come back to normal so you can tell us who you really are!"

The monster formerly known as Sayaka let out one final, massive roar. The two voices screamed out as loud as they could, shaking the floorboards like an earthquake. Jotaro listened carefully. One was definitely saying _Sayaka_ , a screaming angry female voice with no true rhyme or melody. The other…

"Madoka-chan, keep going. I'm going to try joining you."

"You, Jotaro-kun?" Her face scrunched up with surprise. "What good will it do to have us both shouting at once!"

"I can hear… something." He scowled, and brought his hat down over his face. "Just do it already."

She frowned for a moment, then nodded. In unison, they took a breath; without pausing to listen to Madoka, Jotaro tried to find words of his own. (Dammit, why were things like this always so hard? He didn't know what to say…)

"Polnareff!" The codename echoed through the concert hall, mingling with Madoka's call to Sayaka. "Listen to me! I don't know what the hell's going on, but you have to fight this! Don't give up everything to be this witch!"

Another cog whizzed past Magician's Scarlet, opening up a gash in her other arm, and he winced. The bird-headed person seemed to falter slightly, and the tip of her weapon drove into the ground.

Which shattered.

Suddenly all of them – Kyouko, Madoka, Jotaro, and the witch – were falling into a deeper pit, flailing for ground.

Kyouko was already turning so that she would land on her feet (and, really, how were those wrist and ankle flames still burning after all this time?). He was alright, too, but… Madoka had no Stand to help her – that she could remember. So he made a snap decision.

He transformed.

There was no chorus of sweetly singing girls, no pleasant tune of violins for him: instead, an angry electric guitar riff provided the theme for his transformation, and he groaned. It wasn't even the type of music he liked.

His clothes – his precious school jacket, his ridiculous chain, even his favourite hat – seemed to dissolve into thin air. In their place, he found himself wearing an odd kind of rectangular loincloth, metal shoulder pads, and a big red… cape? Scarf? On his hands, a pair of black finger-less gloves, covered in buttons or some shit. His hair frizzed up suddenly and grew, becoming suddenly spiky, and a tiara appeared on his forehead. And there, in pride of place on his muscled chest, sat his star-shaped soul gem. Had the others had their soul gems out on display? He didn't think so, but he might have missed it.

"Good grief." He jumped towards Madoka, catching her in mid-air in his muscled arms; with a thump, they landed on the glass-littered floor of the pit.

"Jotaro-kun…" Madoka stared at his soul gem in disbelief. "No…"

Beside them, Kyouko landed neatly on the ground, blood still leaking from her arms. She noticed Jotaro, and gasped. "It can't be… Star Platinum!"

Yes, thought Jotaro calmly, setting Madoka down on her feet. That was his name in this form. Star Platinum…


	13. This Just Can't be Right

The blue-tailed beast crashed down in a scream of glass and thunderous orchestral music. It was pulsing gently, seeming to waver between this form and something much smaller. Something… It almost looked like two pictures superimposed on top of each other. One was Sayaka, it was clear, but the other… Jotaro could have sworn he'd seen that shape somewhere before. The monster pulsed again, and this time he was even more certain of it.

"Madoka-chan…" He pointed to the witch. "Can you see that?"

She nodded. "It's going between witch and human, but… it looks like more than Sayaka."

Magician's Scarlet frowned. "Her codename, Jotaro-kun. You were shouting it at her." Two cards appeared in her hand. "What if… it isn't just a codename?"

"What?" Madoka looked from one to the other, her face pale and drawn. "You mean… 'Polnareff' is a real person?"

The muscled bird-person nodded grimly. "Jotaro-kun, you recognised that it felt right to call the witch by that name, correct?"

"Yeah."

"I think part of your subconscious knows something we don't. It's not just Sayaka-chan. All of us who have codenames… it's not just random. Somehow…" She turned the cards over. They were the Tarot cards that suggested The Lovers and Death. (But hadn't that already happened? Some part of his mind felt sure he'd seen the Lovers before.) "Somehow our fates, our souls have been tied together, our names and memories bound into one body. We recognise each other, even subconsciously, and that's where our code names come from."

The pink face relaxed a little, and Madoka looked thoughtfully at Kyouko. "Yes, that sounds right… Even though on the surface it seemed like a crazy idea, we all went along with the codenames when Sayaka suggested them. And you responded a little to 'Avdol' this afternoon."

"I did?" The pointed beak seemed to frown. "Well, anyway, I think that's the long and short of it. I don't know where you fit in, Jotaro-kun, because your codename is just your nickname, but…"

He shrugged. "Other people are called that, probably. It's not uncommon."

"That's true…" Kyouko shook her feathered head. "But it's bad news, either way. If you put two separate personalities into one body, and both of them remember different things, and there is too much disagreement…" The cards in her hand burst into flame and crumbled into ash on the floor. "We may go mad, or start to look for any kind of relief, like Sayaka. And if you wipe away your memories… both people are affected. As we can see."

The half-knight monster pulsed once more behind her, as if on cue. Its arms pushed down against the ground.

"Memory is unpredictable. You remember and forget different things all the time." Kyouko's Stand turned to face the beast once more. "It seems that using magic or grief seeds only makes these changes in your mind more dramatic."

With that, she sprang forward towards the slowly-stabilizing witch, her left hand filled with flames and her right clutching at the chain-linked spear.

"Jotaro-kun…" Madoka's voice was soft, muttering so he could barely hear it over all the music and roaring. "The witch… I don't think either of them…"

He nodded and balled up his fists in their fingerless gloves. "I'll help."

"No!" Magician's Scarlet glance back, just as another set of cogs came flying in. "Please, you need to try! If anyone can help her, you two can! Don't worry about me!"

"But Kyouko-chan!" The pink twin-tails bobbed as Madoka darted forwards, reaching out to the outnumbered Stand. "You can't fight all these and the witch on your own!"

For a moment, between slashes and parries, Kyouko's head de-transformed, the better for her to give them both a confident grin. A wall of flaming chains sprang up between her and the two of them, tall enough and thick enough that busting through it would lose them valuable time. "You two need to do this! You need to live on!"

The leviathan finally managed to lever itself upright. Kyouko ignored it. "I believe in you! If there's anyone who can finally figure out this whole mystery – if there's anyone who can defeat this two-minded curse on us, then it's you, Jotaro-kun, and you, Madoka-chan!" Something whizzed past her, and blood splattered on the floor. "I'll take care of this! Just get us all out of here!"

She took out her ponytail and clutched a small talisman – her soul gem, he realised – in her hand. The chain-linked spear grew to the size of a small building, with Kyouko kneeling on top of it calmly, aiming it straight for the witch that had once been Sayaka (and 'Polnareff', whoever he was). "It seems reminding her of who she used to be only enraged her. So… I'm sorry, Madoka-chan."

There was a flash of red light. The talisman flew up –

An arc, ending in the midpoint between the spear and the witch –

Kyouko's head turned back to its bird form.

 _Duck_.

Jotaro grabbed Madoka and threw himself backwards, away from –

There was a massive crash. Blue and red clouds clumped together briefly, before expanding outwards in a wall of noise and colour. Bits and pieces rained outwards – a few links of the chain – and then, at last, the barrier disintegrated.

And Madoka and Jotaro were lying face down in the street, a single grief seed beside them paying testimony to what had been.

Somewhere, a set of four-legged footsteps echoed away down Cairo Street.


	14. The Ties That Bind Jojo (and Madoka)

Madoka was quiet on the way home that night, again. She was pale, eerily calm, not smiling or crying or… well, anything. He wasn't really sure how to react to it. Was she… angry about him transforming? Or in shock? He knew he was.

The ring glared at him from his hand, a mocking reminder of what he could not do. Dammit, it wasn't logical to be upset about some girls he'd barely met, what was wrong with him? And yet… he recognised the man whose soul was bound to Sayaka's. The others had seen it, too: these, clearly, were not just any girls.

And they had all forgotten each other. None of them had known each other – apart from Madoka and Sayaka, and that seemed debatable now – but each of them had seen the duality in each of the others.

He decided, methodically, to try and sort them out in his head. On one side, the magical girls, who seemed to remember lives that fit into this crazy Mitakihara city. Kyouko, for instance, has thought she had a background in the church.

On the other side were the… codenames. Or rather, the real people who were being recognised and represented by their codenames. Madoka had memories of being an old man, and Sayaka… well, 'Polnareff' had looked male, from the glimpses he'd managed to catch. These people seemed to be bound to the souls of the girls, with very few memories apart from what was in their subconscious. They became stronger with the use of Stands, but…

Sayaka had insisted, after her repeated memory wipes, that she had a sister, even though Madoka had mentioned her being an only child. In general, Madoka's story seemed radically different… Was that the magical girl part of her speaking or the codename part?

Speaking of which… Madoka hadn't made a wish, but Sayaka had remembered her Stand. It seemed like something that someone might think in their delirium, but Jotaro knew he'd heard of the 'Hermit' Stand before somewhere. It wasn't just a crazy coincidence, or something. Which of the memories were true? She had no soul gem, and yet she dreamed of a Stand; she didn't fit into the 'magical girl' category, but she still had a codename. Were Stands themselves affected by the memory loss?

Dammit, this was confusing. He scowled up at the ceiling of the Kaname's spare room, trying to piece the puzzle together.

Come to think of it, he didn't fit into the 'magical person' category very well either. It wasn't just that he was nearly two meters tall and bulky with it; he didn't have a history in this town, that he knew of. And he didn't feel like there were two minds in his head.

What would it feel like? Maybe he wouldn't realize it, after all. Maybe he would feel as though things had always been that way, that the clashing memories and personalities were simply dreams. Or maybe the two threads would be able to meld together somehow, taking elements from both people. Maybe he'd flick back and forth from one to the other, and never notice anything different. (But they would have said something if he did that, right? They would have noticed, right?)

Good grief. This was only going to get more complicated.

* * *

"Jotaro-kun…" She shouldered her school bag and turned towards school. "I think it's time to talk to Homura-chan."

"Hm?"

She shrugged. "Kyouko-chan… she said we should ask her about her other body, right?"

"Oh, yeah. And…" He stared at the back of her head, watching the red ribbons bounce gently in the breeze. "Maybe we need to learn more about her and her… codename."

"What do you mean by that?"

He explained, briefly, what he had been thinking about last night, trying to make it sound more interesting than "you versus the people in your heads". She listened, nodded, fiddled with her skirt.

"Then… perhaps it is possible to separate Homura and her codename, to try and gain more information." She clicked the knuckles in her left hand absent-mindedly. "Or… would that hurt them, do you think?"

"I don't know. She did – they did call themselves our enemy," he pointed out, bluntly.

Madoka shook her head. "That was after she used her magic to save us from a witch, remember. 'DIO', whoever that person is, probably regained a few memories from that – enough to change her tune significantly. I think at least part of her is on our side, and we can use that against… against the person possessing her." A small sigh. "Maybe, in another life, we could even have been friends, just as normal people…"

"Yeah." He looked up, up into the cloudy sky, and thought of a green uniform, of red spheres suspended on chains. "Maybe you were, in another life. Maybe the codename people are the same."

"Right? That's what I think. That 'Avdol' in particular. I think that person was very helpful to… the person I dream of."

"Madoka-chan…" He wasn't sure how to word what was on his mind; he grasped at the air as if he could catch an idea in his hands, and thought – apropos of nothing – that he could or should call her 'Gramps'. "Do I have a… person? A separate personality?"

"Well…"A tip of the head. "I don't know. You don't remember how you got here anyway. You've never lived in this town before you got here. You don't know anyone here and no one knows you. To me, you could say anything about what you remember, and I'd believe it, but…" A decisive, singular shake of her head, sending the pink hair flying again. "I don't think you are anything more than one person." She reached out hesitantly to touch his arm, and he allowed her hand to rest on his sleeve for a moment. "If you've forgotten or remembered something…"

"Nothing. Even though I used my goddamn magic for once, I don't remember more than what I knew last night."

She frowned. "Perhaps it requires a specific trigger?"

With a scowl, he turned away again, loosing himself from her grasp. "Or this is fucking all there is. I'll be stuck in an amnesia town for—"

(A snow globe. He remembered a snow globe, with a beautifully detailed depiction of a city. He hadn't paid much attention to it at the time. It had sat there on the back shelf of an old junk shop, among all the other crap, full of slightly murky water and covered in dust. They had been looking for something else. Some _one_ else, perhaps.)

He almost groaned aloud with frustration: a little memory, and it wasn't even goddamn helpful.

"Well, anyway, you're right," he added aloud. "We should go to Homura-chan."

She nodded, and bunched up her fists.


	15. No Escape from Reality

Akemi Homura, it turned out, was not actually an easy person to find. No one at school knew where she was, although all the teachers agreed she had definitely come to class; Madoka had caught glimpses of her long, black hair here and there, but had never been able to catch up with her. Telepathically, she wondered to Jotaro whether Homura was the one causing the memory disturbances.

 _Maybe that's a side effect of her Stand, or something?_

Jotaro shook his head and added another label to his diagram of the human heart, trying not to attract the attention of the teacher. _We wouldn't remember her, then. Nobody would._

Kyubey sat on his desk, wishing his tail back and forth calmly. The shadow was beginning to distract him, not to mention the unnatural lights of the school classroom (painful brightness, he could barely fucking think), and Jotaro gritted his teeth. That damn cat definitely wasn't being any help. _Does she live somewhere? Do her friends know?_

Madoka's thoughts buzzed for a moment, as if affected by static. _She doesn't really… have any friends. I tried to be friendly when she transferred in, but… She seems to want to keep her distance._

Of course she did. _Teachers, then. They'll know._

A pause. _Hmm. I suppose if I tell them I'm concerned about her health… I'll try it. Hold on till the end of the day, okay?_

With that, she left him and the cat-thing alone with the heart.

Dammit. He was at a disadvantage, and he knew it. There was nothing to punch or outsmart; there was no way either of them could figure out… wait. Something stuck out in the back of his mind. Madoka's Stand – if she remembered it again, or if she made a wish anew (assuming she had had one before and it wasn't just some stupid dream), then perhaps…

He thought back to the name Sayaka had blurted out in her half-manic frenzy: Hermit Pink. What could it do? What did it look like? He remembered… thorns, winding around one white-gloved hand. But… that wasn't Madoka's soft, delicate hand. If only his memory would come back faster, instead of in these small and random images. If only he could remember the person attached to the hand. (They better still be attached, or there was going to be trouble.)

A name floated through his mind. Her codename. 'Joseph Joestar'. Who was he? (It was a male name, right? He had trouble telling with foreign names sometimes.) And how were they connected, this man and himself?

Jotaro suddenly realised that the only member of his family he could remember was his mother. Her wish… her wish was for him to have a good life. A natural thing for a mother to want for her child. And yet…

Why could he remember that, of all things? What kind of cruel torturer would give him back the memory of his mother's illness when he couldn't even do anything about it? His wish… dammit, his wish wasn't even close to being fulfilled, at least as far as he knew. He knew, somehow, that his main objective was to help her, to get her better… And yet here he was, sitting in a classroom writing 'circumflex artery' and 'ascending aorta', while a girl he barely knew searched for a mad girl. What good was this doing anyone?

His time limit. 50 days. The number popped into his head, as if to mock him. He had been here, what, three days? He didn't have enough time…

He pulled down his cap. That was enough. He had had enough of this bullshit, this memory stuff. If they didn't find Homura, he would leave. Memory or no memory, he couldn't let her die. It wasn't that he was charging off with no idea where to go – he'd start off with the big cities and search them with a fine-tooth comb. Then, if he remembered where his mother actually lived, or if he remembered something about what he was doing in this dumb city…

Had he, perhaps, been looking for a cure for her? But, then, how had he ended up so badly injured, in the middle of a high-school classroom in Japan?

He frowned down at the neatly-drawn tubes and muscles of the heart. There was an odd circle around the bottom of the aorta, just below where the diagram had cut off, like a mockery of the silver ring on his finger. 50 days, 49, 48, 47… and then his mother would die, and his heart would rip in two.

Fuck.

* * *

 _I found her. Meet me at this address._

Jotaro stomped down the street in a foul mood, a cigarette between his lips and a hand tightly clenched against the brim of his cap. It had taken them the rest of the day to track this weird bitch down, her and her multiple personalities, and she probably wouldn't – or more likely couldn't – tell them anything about what was going on. God-fucking-dammit.

He knew, rationally, that facing up to the only other magical girl in the city – that they knew of – was a good idea. Even with a will of steel, there was bound to be something she let slip – about her 'other body', her involvement in all of this, why she was their enemy. But the 50 days… They ate at him, slowly, making his thoughts confused and anxious. How many days had he blanked out before waking up here?

Damn, he wasn't like this. He had to be calm. Cool. Have confidence that this case would be solved and that he could get his memory back. But the time ticked by, and he couldn't do anything to stop it. One day, two days, three days…

 _The memories are hurting you, Jotaro._ The white cat-thing with the red markings padded next to him, keeping up with his long strides without any apparent effort. _You should do something about that._

He scoffed. "Thanks, but no thanks. I can handle this."

 _Can you?_ Kyubey's long, white ears – the ones with those ridiculous floating rings – twitched from side to side. _I'm surprised you'd wish to continue such mental torture._

"Torture? I can endure it if it means not turning into a witch. Or a… warlock, or whatever guys turn into." He frowned. "Besides, how do you know how I feel? What I remember?"

 _It's a common side effect of using magic._ The red eyes glanced sidelong at him, and he grimaced. _It comes to everyone, even if they only have one soul._

A pause. "You knew about that. Sayaka-chan, and 'Polnareff'. You knew that would happen."

 _When a person has two souls locked inside themselves, there will be competition. Memories flood in, making one strong, and eventually… That is without even considering that too many memories will inevitably bring pain to a Stand user. No matter how many souls._

"You bastard. You never told us this."

 _You never asked. Besides, I'm not the bad guy here. I only wish to make you happy and free of pain._

"And how's that?" Jotaro glared at the red outline on Kyubey's back. "As a witch – warlock? Putting other people in danger?"

 _Ah, your mother was subject to a witch's kiss, was she not? Causing a mysterious sickness that no one understood…_ He swished his wide, fluffy tail. _How unfortunate that mere wishes cannot save her._

"Huh. Figures that even a bastard like you can't defeat a witch."

 _Your self-control, Jotaro, is amazing. I barely even noticed that little twitch. Killing me, however, would not do you any good._

Jotaro growled slightly. His fingers, tight in fists that cried out to punch, started to cramp.

He was shaking.

* * *

"Ah, Jotaro-kun… Wait, are you all right?" Madoka turned towards him, her hand darting away from the doorbell of what was, apparently, the perfect place for a magical girl to avoid people. A name plate sat on the left side of the door: [Akemi Homura]; below the neat engraving, deep grooves had been scratched as if with claws to spell out another name.

[DIO].

At least they knew this was the right place.

"I'm fine. This damn cat is pissing me off."

"Well…" She looked down at the little cat-thing's calm face, as blank as ever. "We should probably keep him around. If all else fails…" She smiled weakly. "I can always make a wish."

"Don't. Not for me." Jotaro rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment and made a face. "Not good." He explained the memory problem – he had them, for a start, and they weren't good.

"Fifty days?"

"Yup. So if we don't get anything from Homura-chan…" He gestured out into the world. "I'm going to find my mother and help her, somehow. I at least need to be there if she…"

Madoka leaned forward slightly and placed a hand on his arm. If he hadn't been so wound up, it would have been a nice gesture; as it was it felt close, too close, like a fucking knife instead of a hand. "She won't die, Jotaro-kun. Not yet. We just have to believe and trust that she'll be okay. I know…" She sighed, and dropped her hand again. "I know this is hard. In my dreams, I know the pain of heartbreak all too well."

"And… in reality?"

"Sayaka-chan was my friend. I liked Kyouko a lot, even we spent so little time with her. And Mami… She was a good guardian, a good sempai. I think it'd be stupid not to feel anything for them. That's what makes us human, after all." She smiled, a true beam of peace and joy, and he wondered how she could stand it.

For a moment, he almost wanted to be stupid, nonhuman, just so he wouldn't have to feel any of this shit, but – Kyubey. That would be exactly what the little motherfucker wanted, wouldn't it? For him to give in and seek relief in a grief seed.

So… maybe it was good, like she said. He didn't know if it was her speaking or her codename persona, and at this point he didn't really care: this came from the heart, either way. And, at least, she shouldn't feel the pain of her memories, not just yet.

"You don't have to use your wish on this. We can handle this on our own."

Her smile changed, into a cheeky grin with a hint of cocky assurance. "Yeah. Let's talk to this bitch, shall we?"

(Suddenly, he could really see the difference between her codename personality and the real thing. He wondered if that was permanent.)

"Right."

With all the pent-up aggression of a boxer landing the final punch, Madoka rang the doorbell.


	16. The Curse of DIO

The door creaked open. They stepped inside, making sure keep the door a little open behind them in case they needed an escape.

The room was cool and white, oddly featureless apart from a set of coloured benches radiating out from a single central point, in broken circles like a failed ripple. Homura sat in the middle of the room in front of a small, circular black coffee-table that seemed to be at the centre, smiling at them with her chin in her hand.

There was something odd about the expression on her face, and Jotaro tried to figure out what it meant without catching sight of those glaring purple eyes: something different, perhaps, than what he had expected. It was – evil? The kind of evil that was happy to allow the good to spend its energy fruitlessly before effortlessly gaining the upper hand: an evil, perhaps, that had got a lot of experience in getting what it wanted. An odd, lazy kind of evil.

He tried not to shudder and looked away, at the light, bright, open room. Somehow it wasn't the sort of place he had expected a person like this to inhabit: big, white, clean, sterile. To be honest, he had half-expected to see a coffin and spiderwebs. Here… The lights were even brighter and more annoying than at school, and he was glad of the brim of his hat shading some of the light away from him. (Concentrate. Ignore the light. Focus on something.)

There were odd hologram-like things on the wall, floating up and down, showing vague and fuzzy pictures of things that didn't make sense. One of the cotton ball familiars from that first witch. A map of the city. A diagram of some woman with one of those big, flouncy dresses like he'd seen in a manga somewhere, but turned upside down for some reason so that she seemed to be falling. And… Mami. Or rather, pieces of Mami.

That was definitely her head.

Jotaro wondered how and when Homura had got her hands on all of these. He felt his skin crawl; beside him, Madoka was trembling quietly. Maybe she was feeling the same half-fear half-curiosity that he was.

It seemed to come merely with being in this girl's presence – shock, awe, nervousness, all blended in at once, rendering them both speechless. Not that Jotaro was much of a talker anyway.

Above them, the shadow of a large black pendulum made a dull, low _thumm_ as it passed through the air. (That was going to get on his nerves, he knew it.)

"So, Madoka, Jotaro. Come to visit, hmm?" She hadn't moved, her gaze fixed on the two of them with the quiet intensity of a laser beam on full power. "I'm surprised, after I declared myself your enemy and all. Come to fight?"

"N-no…" Madoka took a deep breath, and stepped forward hesitantly. "We just want to talk, Homura-chan. Please, let us live while we ask you some stuff."

"Oh? Come to beg for mercy?" Her eyes, dark and purple and highly amused, dug into them, her long lashes fluttering over her face. (He tried to focus on her plain grey hair band.) "Very well, I accept. Though I can't promise I'll answer your questions. Neither of us –" she gestured towards her own head with her free hand – "particularly wants to give you any information, although we have different reasons for doing so."

"You're – oh! You're in control of her!" Madoka put a hand up to her mouth. "You're her codename personality!"

"Codename?" The girl opened her mouth a little, displaying those slightly longer-than-usual incisors. "You mean the personality that doesn't belong in this body. Mmm, yes. I realise you were expecting to talk to her personally, but… Her and I have an agreement which makes that completely impossible."

He blinked. Did the person called 'DIO' somehow have enough memory and control to separate his personality from Homura's? How was that even possible? There was something else going on…

"That's right, bitch, you don't belong together in this body." He glowered at her shoulders; the dark hair that rested on them was altogether too much like his own for comfort. It shouldn't be like this. "In fact, DIO, we'd like to ask you about your other body."

 _Thumm._

The face flickered briefly, the mouth closing and the head turning away before 'DIO' gained back control. Homura smiled again. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Things have always been this way – Stand users most often have a second personality beside their own. The two minds in harmony can often make a combination Stand that works to the person's advantage. I have no other body than Homura's here."

"Hm. Well, that's bullshit." Jotaro folded his arms. Fuck this. He had no idea what he was supposed to say next; luckily, Madoka was there to turn the screw.

She put her hands together, stepping closer to Homura with a light and cheerful smile; Jotaro could tell she was putting extra effort into looking even more cutesy than she normally did. Ugh.

"Oh, Homura-chan, please tell us! You know in your heart, you really do want to help us. Please!" She held a hand out to the dark-haired girl. "We could help you too, maybe!"

"The great and mightyDIOdoesnotneed—" Her mouth worked for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was flat, cold, calm; he could barely see where she was biting at her lip. "Madoka-chan." A brief sigh. Her face lost the evil smile, and gained instead a neutral, almost bored expression directed at the door just behind them. "I would rather not tell you anything that could put your life in danger. Nor yours, Jotaro-kun, although I can't say I know you. I am opposed to the unnecessary wastage of human life, unlike my companion."

"That's… very gracious of you." Madoka's mouth twitched slightly; he couldn't tell why. "But… We're worried, because Jotaro-kun's mother is out there sick somewhere, and we want to, um…"

"Get out of here so we can find her," said Jotaro, bluntly. "But I can't right now, because this might be important. So, again. Where is your – DIO's – other body?"

 _Thumm._

Homura sighed. "There's no harm in telling them its location," she muttered, more to herself than to them. Her face remained blank and impassive. "The Crusaders already know the city, if not the house. There's no way they could…" She frowned, then addressed the two of them once again, her eyes not moving from the door. "As, in theory, you already know, DIO's other body is in Cairo. Although technically it's only his head and –" She stopped, her mental companion apparently deciding that that was enough. "Anyway, it exists and it's in Cairo, but you're never going to get to it, not right now. Not if you don't get out of –" She waved her free hand in a vaguely circular motion, and Jotaro wasn't sure whether she was referring to the room or… something else.

Cairo. So that's why 'Cairo Street' had sounded so familiar. More importantly, though…

"So, your consciousness is here while your body is somewhere different?" Madoka stroked her chin again, with a meditative motion that still looked odd on a teenage girl. "That must mean that it's possible that our codename personalities also have real bodies." She frowned. "Possession, huh? Or maybe it's a dream, or a hallucination, or…"

"No." Jotaro already knew what was going on, although he wasn't sure how he knew or even if it made any sense. "It's an enemy stand."

 _Thumm._

"Exactly so, Jotaro!" Suddenly the catlike grin was back, and the purple eyes refocused on their faces. (He had preferred it the other way, dammit.) "It is, indeed, an enemy Stand – for you two. For me, it is simply a training ground for my more difficult powers. This girl's talents and abilities have taught me quite a lot, you know."

"Who's the user?" Madoka turned her head from side to side, as if expecting to see a magical girl – or boy – just around the corner. "How does it work?"

"Can't tell you!" The girl chuckled, her teeth showing just a little more. "The user and I have a nice agreement. She's helping me, serving her Lord DIO and capturing my greatest enemies at the same time." She dropped the hand that had been supporting her chin, the better to gesture expansively at them. "Oh, this is so much better than any other Stand user! Imagine, I could have done this a _month_ ago!"

 _Thumm._

"A… month?" 29, 30, 31. Fuck. Jotaro stared at her, his face suddenly feeling cold and pale under his cap. "You mean to tell me… that my mother has been ill for a month already?"

A shrug. "I couldn't care less about your mother. I have other goals in mind."

He felt his fingers clenching into fists again (had he ever really released them?) and tried to stay calm. There was still information this girl could tell them, if they got the right personality talking…


	17. I, DIO, Won't Rely on Anyone Anymore

Madoka shook her head and frowned. She seemed just as upset as he was over the news that his mother had been ill for so long, although he had no idea why that could be. They didn't even know each other that well… not that either of them could remember, at least.

"I can't see a Stand anywhere nearby." There were tears rolling down her face, but she stood her ground, even as she shook with… whatever emotion she was feeling at the moment. "For all I know – we know – you could just be making all this up to get us off your back so you can kill us when we don't expect it."

 _Thumm._

"Mmm. True." The black-haired girl leaned back casually, her personalities seeming to mesh together for a moment before she slipped back into the calmer mask of Homura. "But there would be no point in killing you in… here. It is much simpler for him to have you trapped instead, losing and gaining memory, never really understanding how to escape. Even my companion can see that, even if he yearns to suck your blood."

"S-suck our blood?" Madoka put her hands up to her throat. "I don't know why, but that reminds me of something…" She took a slow, deep breath, calming herself down, and something crackled at her fingertips. Was that her Stand?

She stared off into the distance. "I don't know… I think I heard of something like that, a long time ago, longer than should be possible… I can't remember why it rings a bell, but..." She turned to Jotaro, frowning. "I think we might be facing more than just a Stand. There were… other abilities. And…" Her face scrunched up in confusion. "Is this relevant? It all feels like the craziest dream I've ever had…"

"What are you talking about, Madoka-chan? DIO, tell me what she means!"

Homura shrugged. "Beats me. It doesn't sound like something I was involved in."

"Why's there a squirrel?" Suddenly, Madoka grabbed at Jotaro's lapels; he tried to step back and avoid her, but bumped into the door instead. She ignored, or didn't notice, his sudden panic. "What the fuck was with that guy? Nazis! This doesn't seem like a safe environment for a little girl like me!"

He looked desperately towards Homura's shoulder and she shrugged. (Man, it really said a lot for someone's sanity when they were even more mad than _she_ was.)

 _Thumm._

"Uhm…" He pried Madoka's hands off his jacket and tried to pretend he knew what to do. "Is this a memory?"

Another shrug from Homura. "Some memories come in more-or-less chronological order, sometimes. If the other soul in her body has a lot of them, they could all be mixing up. I went through the same thing when DIO began to get his memories back – I was remembering his life, but as if it was me living it. It can be… confusing."

"Ah." Jotaro frowned down at Madoka, who had crumpled to her knees and was holding her head in her hands. "I guess the blood thing triggered it."

"Indeed." The calm face stared vacantly at her pink head. "DIO says it's not anything he can recognise, so it probably isn't relevant to… what you want to know."

"Good grief." Jotaro pulled his hat down further over his eyes. From beside him, a little voice muttered, "Caesar…"

There was an awkward pause; apparently Homura was even less of a stunning conversationalist than Jotaro. She cleared her throat. "She's not even a magical girl. I'm surprised she still gets affected by the whole memory thing."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, it's complicated. She remembers being a Stand user before… before whatever's going on now."

 _Thumm._

"I see." Homura's expression did not change. Good grief, they were like two fucking peas in a pod. He wondered how she and a person like 'DIO' could possibly get along. "I expect she's also getting delayed grief from Sayaka's death, and Kyouko's."

He froze. "How did you know about that?"

"I told you, the Stand user that's doing this to us is… mmm…" She tipped her head thoughtfully, putting a finger to her cheek. "I would say 'friend' or 'assistant' or even 'employee', but of course DIO calls her his slave and such."

"Tell me where to find her."

"Not happening." The smile was back, the one Jotaro was beginning to hate so much that it physically hurt. "You'll never find her, no matter how much you search. You'll never even be able to leave this town. It's useless, Jotaro, useless, useless, useless!"

 _Thumm._

His hands balled back into fists. Damn, he wanted to punch this goddamn motherfucker, possibly into the sun or the nearest volcano, but there was so much information locked up in that dark-haired head. It would go to waste if he crushed it between Star Platinum's massive fists.

He frowned, and wondered when he'd started thinking of Star Platinum as a separate entity from himself. It was just him in a different form, right?

Right?

Besides, he didn't really want to expose all that skin and purple to this bitch. He settled for a steady glare at her hands.

The crumpled heap of Madoka on the floor had, at least, finally stopped crying. He sighed. Damn, this was awkward. Was he supposed to… comfort her or something? God, this was why he could never –

 _Thumm._

He glanced up at the pictures on the wall again. There was one he hadn't noticed before: one hastily taken of Mami half out of her transformation, her lower half still swaddled by the tentacles of Hierophant Gold. In this light, it looked… well, suspiciously not-gold. More like a greenish tinge. Emerald, even.

Something stirred in his memory. A name that hadn't had any meaning when he had heard it a couple days ago, other than seeming right.

"Hey, uh… Homura-chan? Or DIO, or whichever?" The dark-haired girl blinked, her smile opening up a little. "You know everyone's codename personalities, don't you?"

"I can't deny it. It would be stupid of me not to plan ahead for any situation."

"Right." He pointed to the pictures of Mami, one whole and one… not. (That was still her head. Yup. Okay.) "So she…"

"Ah, Mami-san," Homura's teeth glinted in the light. "She was called 'Kakyoin'. A terrible fighter, with a heart of gold. How very sad."

He gritted his teeth and rubbed his forehead under his hat; wished Madoka would get up, do something, even use her wish so he wouldn't have to think about this. Not right now, facing his enemy and with no way to fight against her teleportation, or whatever. He could barely even respond to the insult about Mami's fighting.

(Was there just something about being in the same room as DIO which brought your memories back?)

 _Thumm._

(What was this emotion connected with the name?)

He took a deep breath. "The… the person whose soul was bound to Mami-san's…" An image of curly red hair, falling over a pair of eyes. Two scarred, violet eyes. "His name was Kakyoin Noriaki. And he's dead now." A pause. "I guess."

(And it wasn't enough for such a person, it wasn't enough to say 'I guess' and leave it like that, but he couldn't remember why, and he felt… weird. Sad and wrong.)

"Hmm." The girl stood up and turned to face the wall, studying the pictures intently. "It seems that way, doesn't it?" She made a few motions with her hands, and the pictures began to move around, seemingly at random. "However, there might be a way for you to retrieve his soul. And the souls of your other friends, of course."

"What? Tell me!"

"Well, defeat the Stand user, of course." She bent forward and put a hand to the wall, shaking. For a moment, Jotaro wondered whether she was going to cry or something. But the dark head tipped back, and suddenly a manic, wide-eyed laugh burst from her small pink lips, and she looked at him over her shoulder. He flinched. "You'll never find her! You'll never be able to defeat her entire – ahaha – Stand! You'd be crazy to even try! Only I have power over her, and I put a flesh bud in her brain, even though she's unflinchingly loyal! Oh, god..." She clutched at the side of her head gleefully. "Aah, it's so funny, you'll never figure it out! Your soul will be trapped in here forever just like everyone else!"

 _Thumm._

"What do you mean, in here?" Without Jotaro noticing, Madoka had managed to compose herself and sit up on her knees, facing the laughing girl.

Homura grinned up at the ceiling, her hands on her face. "Oh, dear Ra, I could kiss you right now! This… this is perfect! We have them exactly where I wanted them, and they don't even know what's going on yet! Oh, this is such a useful Stand… So convenient…" Her eyes turned back to the two of them, staring at her open mouthed. "Don't you see, dear ones? You're in it! This entire city is the inside of a Stand!"

* * *

And there it was. The key piece of the puzzle. Even if nothing else made sense, that was one thing that he could use to understand this world.

He hadn't left the city. He hadn't even tried. Would he, perhaps, have come across some sort of wall? Or would he simply have been turned around, and find himself going back the way he came?

Homura covered her mouth and straightened up; all at once, she was back to the serious, calm version of herself. "Good grief. DIO gets talkative sometimes."

She could say that again. But she probably wouldn't. (And… had she stolen his catch phrase?)

"I guess that's all you're going to tell us." He spared a glance for Madoka, still sitting comfortably on the floor. "Let's go."

"Wait! Madoka-chan, Jotaro-kun! I have to warn you!" She held out her hand, fluttering slightly as if there was something boiling over under the surface of her skin. (It was like looking in a mirror, still. He wondered who had copied whom, and whether it meant something.) "Madoka-chan… there's a big, dangerous witch coming tomorrow." She pointed to one of the pictures, the upside-down poufy dress lady. (Or was it an ice cream cone?) "It's made of a lot of bound up souls all crammed together, and it's worse than a normal witch." She shuddered. " _Much_ worse. So… I don't know. Get under cover, I guess. Normally, I'd tell you to run away, but…" She gestured around her. "Not much you can do about that."

 _Thumm._

"Right." Madoka got up and dusted off her school uniform. "Thank you, Homura-chan. For everything." She gave a small bow, and a wicked grin came over her face. "Your next line is, 'Get out of my house'!"

"Get out of my – ahh!" Homura, for the first time that day, looked completely and utterly horrified. "Just go! Now!"

They went. Now.


	18. The Game Mistress

"Well, that was enlightening." Madoka laughed shakily and rubbed her forehead. "I wasn't paying attention the whole way through, but… now we know a lot more, right?"

"Right." He watched the water splashing down in the water fountain in front of them. It was getting dark, but… "Who's Caesar?"

He saw her blush suddenly out of the corner of his eye. She put her hands down on the bench and kicked her feet. "Umm… I got a lot of memories from a long time ago. They're not connected to…" She gestured with her head. "This."

He crossed his arms. "It must be important. You got really… emotional."

"Yeah, I guess I did, huh?" She sighed, a small waver creeping into her voice. "It was… something in my codename personality's life. Back when he… when I was young and energetic."

"You're young and energetic now."

"Not like that." She turned away. "This was – I guess it was my other body, if you want to put it like that." Her fingers stroked the base of her neck absentmindedly. "That's something to think about, right? I might have another body somewhere? Anyway, Caesar was my… friend." There was a small, choking cough. "Just my friend."

"Oh." There wasn't much else to say. "You know… Did you hear what I said about Mami?"

"Yeah." Her voice cleared and levelled a little. "Her codename. 'Kakyoin Noriaki', right? It sounds familiar, but how did you know the 'Noriaki' part?"

"I just knew." The brim of his hat felt solid and comforting in his hands; he turned his head away from her. "He was a friend, too. I remember that."

"Ah." A small _hmm_. "So you want to get him back?"

"Yeah, somehow." He frowned. "Dunno if we can get yours back though if it's such a long time ago."

She sighed. "No, we can't. He's dead in the real world, somewhere outside this Stand, probably worm food by now." Her laugh was small, sad, sarcastic. "Just my luck. I have feelings for someone, and it turns out the feelings aren't mine, the body that felt them isn't mine, and the guy's dead in the real world." Another laugh. "You know, I – that is, Madoka - I've never had feelings for a boy before. I… I thought Homura was cute, before she turned homicidal. Weird, right?"

He couldn't agree more.

"So… you want to do something about the big witch?"

She considered this, briefly. "There's not a lot I can do, but… yeah. You never know, we might get all our memories back and be able to defeat this Stand user somehow."

The city bustled around them in the distance. Water splashed in the fountain. He nodded, and turned back towards her so that they were facing the same direction once more.

"Yeah." A quiet moment while he organised his thoughts, and then: "I don't think even Star Platinum can fight an entire city, but…" He shrugged. "Guess we'll think of something."

* * *

They didn't.

The next morning was a Sunday. Junko – Madoka's mother, at least in this world – seemed hungover, and Jotaro wondered whether that was somehow part of the Stand. Whether she was part of the Stand. She seemed real enough.

"Mama…" Madoka put an arm on her shoulder. "Can you… find somewhere safe to go? You and Papa and Tatsuya? Just for a few days?"

"Why? What's going on?" She looked at her daughter seriously, then glanced accusingly at Jotaro. "You aren't in any trouble, are you?"

"No, Mama, it's just…" She looked conflicted. "Something really dangerous is coming. Don't ask me how I know, but… you all need to stay safe, okay?"

Junko creased her forehead into a frown. "Madoka…"

"I know, Mama. Please, trust me. I'm a good daughter to you, aren't I? I've never lied to you, or done anything wrong. I'm not a delinquent, and… neither is Jotaro-kun, not really, even though he looks it sometimes."

"Hey…"

But the older woman was nodding. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"I… I hope so too, Mama. I love you." She turned away. "Let's go, Jotaro-kun."

"Yeah."

* * *

They didn't know, exactly, where they were going: somewhere high up, perhaps, to see where the witch's barrier appeared. How long would it take, he wondered? And… Who would come out the other side?

"Madoka-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you try to save them? They might not even be your real family."

Madoka sighed, and stroked the base of her neck. "No, they really are Kaname Madoka's family. Her real mother, her father and brother. That I'm certain of. I don't know how, but… it's important. They mean a lot to me."

"Oh." He considered this, "They're trapped here as well? They're not… magical people?"

"No, they're not." Madoka gave a light laugh. "None of them have Stand potential, so… it just feels like normal life to them, I think. They don't even realise there could be any other way."

"I'm sorry." Was that the right thing to say? He could never tell with things like this.

"Well, it's fine." She shrugged. "Maybe if we defeat this Stand user, we can all go back to the real world together. After all, if there's hope for 'Joseph Joestar'…" Her head shook from side to side. "He doesn't have a mama or papa, so he really wanted me to, you know, protect them."

"Oh. Yeah."

They walked on in silence for a moment.

"Wait." Madoka stopped suddenly, freezing to her spot and staring out into space. "Oh, no…"

"What is it? A Stand?"

She put her hands up to her face. "Ah, I was wrong! Joseph Joestar has a mama and she's hot!" Her face turned pinker than her hair. "Oh no…"

"Wait, which one of you thinks she's hot?"

"Both!" She cringed. "Ah, these memories are so lewd! I don't wanna see that…"

"Come on, Madoka-chan, snap out of it…" He turned away and kept walking. "Good grief."

"Ah, wait! Ugh, I really don't like this alternate personality…"

* * *

They ended up on the bench by the fountain again, waiting for Madoka to try and understand her thoughts – apparently, sorting her memories from those of 'Joseph Joestar' was beginning to get intense. Every now and again, she'd twitch, and say out of context nonsense like "Santana!" and "Speedwagon!", before lapsing back into a confused and heavy silence.

Jotaro tried to ignore her, and occupied his time by summoning his soul gem. It was definitely darker than before, although he could still see a lot of areas of clear purple light. He estimated it would take him two or three more transformations for him to remember most of the important stuff about his life. One, if he spent a lot of time fighting.

(He wondered whether Star Platinum's fighting style would be different from his own.)

And then - something changed in the air, suddenly, the world suddenly feeling… compressed, somehow. As if…

Madoka looked up, all her uncertainty forgotten, focusing her face into a serious frown. Well, at least she wasn't too far gone. "Do you feel that?"

"Mm. Magic."

She looked at his soul gem, which had begun to pulse slowly. "I guess this is it, huh?"

"Yeah. Guess it is."

She smiled, and put a delicate hand on his arm. "Well… good luck, I guess. I'll be there for you, okay? In case anything goes wrong."

"Thanks."

"And… about the others." She gave his bicep a squeeze (she had been holding him for too long, but he couldn't say anything, not now). "'Kakyoin', 'Avdol', 'Polnareff'. We'll see them again." She smiled brighter, trying to make him feel batter. It wasn't doing a whole lot, but he appreciated the effort. "Let me give you a little life advice."

"Life advice?" He raised his eyebrows and shoved her shoulder gently. "I don't need life advice from someone younger than me."

"Hey! I'm an old man on the inside… I think…." She laughed, and gave him a gentle pat. "Well, I'll give you it anyway. A piece of sisterly, grandfatherly advice. Listen up." She held up a finger seriously. "True love is when you and the love of your life save your future spouse from the undead brain of a vampire."

"The _fuck_?"

"Uhm… never mind." She dropped her hand. "What I mean is, um… saving somebody from an awful fate is a good way to, you know, get them to like you."

"Oh." That seemed a lot more sensible than whatever that other advice had been. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

Well, at least she was honest.


	19. A Race to the Brink

The witch was not difficult to find: her signal was so strong that it would be hard _not_ to go towards it. Madoka walked behind him, keeping an eye out for any other unwelcome visitors – rival magical girls, perhaps. (They hadn't met anyone else so far. Perhaps there were only so many in the Stand at a time.)

The witch was really, really big. Unbelievably so. Bigger that the skyscrapers that decorated the centre of Mitakihara City, bigger than anything he had seen before – that he could remember, of course. It loomed over the city, cackling madly, just like it had looked in the picture on Homura's wall, all frilly skirts and – cogs? Some sort of weird construction, anyway. It wasn't even bothering to use a barrier. Jotaro wondered if any non-Stand users could see it.

"Let's get higher," he said, trying to figure out any sort of plan that could even fucking dent that massive motherfucker, and coming up blank. He hoped Madoka didn't notice how fucking terrified he was.

"Okay." (Damn, he wished he could read that facial expression.)

* * *

They ended up on the roof of a medium sized building, and had to pause for a moment because… shit. The witch was already beginning to wreak havoc; small chunks of building flew past, and metal girders and fucking buses, sometimes. And… fuck, those chunks of building weren't actually that small, they just looked that way against the massive witch. Fuck.

He shuddered and clutched his soul gem. If it had been some punk with a dumb attitude, or some asshole Stand user, sure, he could knock 'em down with no problem. But this… this was unbelievable. The most powerful Stand in existence would probably struggle against this.

He really hoped Star Platinum was powerful. He had felt the agility and precision of his transformation, for a brief time, and could sense a fair amount of potential in its muscles, but… he couldn't remember, didn't know if it was powerful enough to beat this. It wasn't going to be easy. He wished he'd had more time to prepare.

A flicker of movement down a side street facing the witch caught his eye and he squinted down, glad of the distraction. There was… something there, something that would blink into existence occasionally for a moment. If he had been closer, he might have been able to see more clearly; as it was, he could still see the pipe bombs and various other heavy artillery beginning to appear, filling half the street before Jotaro could blink.

"Hey, Madoka-chan…" He nudged her gently. "See that?"

"I see it. I think it's on our side, whatever it is."

"Okay."

A moment. Explosions began to speckle the body of the massive witch, shaking it to its core. (The pipe bombs, he noticed, were smoking despite not having been fired.) The witch turned, listed to one side, and explosions began to pepper her again. ('Pepper' was definitely the right word. Against her massive body those flickers were just seasoning.)

"I guess I should fight it, then."

"Yeah. It'll be easier if someone else is targeting it, as well."

He sighed, and transformed. Once more his clothes flew off to whatever alternate dimension they'd gone to before; his blush, brief as it was, turned purple and spread over his entire body. His hair flew up and grew.

(It must have been worse for Kyouko, he thought. Going from a little girl to a massive fire-breathing naked chicken man in the space of a minute couldn't have been easy. But perhaps she'd been used to it.)

The figure of the street below flickered again. He ignored it, and bunched up his fists. Behind him, Madoka made a comforting noise. _Good luck._

He jumped up, towards the massive witch's head.

* * *

There should have been more then one person fighting this beast. They could all have attacked at once, or come up with a halfway decent strategy that made good use of each of their Stands. It shouldn't have been just him.

He landed on the side of the witch's face and pulled back a massive fist.

"Ora!"

A small dent. That wasn't a good sign. He tried again.

"Ora Ora Ora—" Left, right, left. Pieces began to break off, but the witch was still smiling. Her mouth opened and closed above him, a metallic, echoing cackle bursting out and ruffling his levitating hair.

He wished Star Platinum could have at least kept his hat on. It was weird enough that the hands and legs he caught sight of were purple rather than his normal olive complexion, but this…

He sighed, and got back to _Ora Ora_ -ing.

A flicker. For a moment, he was frozen in place, just as his fist connected to the witch's face once again, and the next…

He blinked. He was clinging onto the lacy midriff of the witch, the entire city spread out below him and the wind blowing much harder than even the witch's maniacal laughter could manage.

What on earth? He closed his eyes, and tried to replay the memory of what he had seen. In his transformation, he was fast and accurate and better than any normal human being; that didn't mean it was easy for his normal human brain to keep up without practice.

He had seen… a vague flicker of something out of the corner of his eye, and his body had frozen; with the speed of a well-trained magical girl, Homura had jumped up to him, moved him out of the way (of what?) and jumped away again. How on earth had a tiny girl like that picked up a giant teenager in the form of a naked man like him, he had no idea. Come to think of it, she hadn't even been transformed, at least not much. Her clothes had been slightly different – a grey jacket with black skirt and tights – and she had been wearing the same grey disc as the first time he'd met her, but… nothing major, like a giant chicken man.

He frowned. Why would she help him, anyway? Wasn't DIO his enemy? Or maybe she had gone against her passenger somehow?

And that Stand… Whatever that was wasn't like the others. It must be different somehow, as if… perhaps it was her Stand, not DIO's. Was that possible? Could the two personalities have different Stands? What would DIO's Stand even look like?

Something shuddered below him, snapping him out of trying to think straight. Below him, the witch's smiling face and shoulders burst into dozens of splashes of light. Missiles – where did those come from? – flew in, above and below, rustling the lace on the giant witch's skirt: suddenly, the behemoth began to tip again.

Well, he wasn't going to miss an opportunity like this. With renewed vigour, he clenched his fists and –

"ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA-!"

This time, he actually made a lot of progress. Pieces of something, whatever it was witches were made of, broke off in chunks as big as his head, as big as his whole body at times. Maybe the explosions had started to weaken its structure; he thanked his lucky stars (no pun intended) that Homura had got him out of the way in time.

He tried not to think about all the possibly malicious ways she might use her powers. (Although, come to think of it, she was probably the one behind all the explosions. Maybe she really did try to resist the DIO in her brain.)

"Ora Ora Ora –"

(Somehow, he remembered another time something like that had happened, where DIO's control had been defeated. Hadn't he kind of obeyed Madoka's weird-ass life advice, long before? He couldn't remember where it had gotten him, but… well, it wasn't a real first date unless you tried to either kill or save one another. Or both. That was just how the world worked.)

"Ora Ora Ora –"

A piece of debris burst out of the side of the witch's corset, straight into Jotaro's face –

and he was falling, unable to react as quickly as he _knew_ he could, the massive chunk of whatever-it-was weighing him down like a road roller –

and this time, he managed to catch the moment that everything froze.


	20. Homura's World: Gunpowder Gelatine

Homura sat casually on top of the lump of rubble, kicking her legs into the unmoving void. This always felt a little silly, to be honest, but sometimes during the loops a therapist would point out that talking about difficult stuff was a Good Thing. And, well, no one in any world would believe her if they actually listened. So a mid-battle chat was probably a good idea. It wasn't like she had as much of a time limit in this setting as some vampires she could mention.

"I need to talk." The purple man – Jotaro's Stand, she guessed – didn't move or blink. She was safe, probably. She didn't really expect it to be any other way. "DIO's gone." She tapped her head, and felt a little stupid. "From in here, I mean. He decided to leave just after you two got out of my house, because he thinks you won't be able to escape, and he's decided he doesn't need any more training here."

She sighed. "He's probably right. It'll just be like all the other times. You… you 'codename' personalities will all be dead again, and I'll be going back around _again_ , and they'll go back to being normal schoolgirls for a while before the next batch of idiots comes along. It never fails. Always the same bodies, never the same minds." With a tap of her foot, she glanced at the purple body of the Stand. Still unmoving. "You're a bit of a special case, y'know. Your friends' souls got sucked out and fused with the girls, and here you are with something that's probably more or less your own body and all. A massive senior who sticks out like a sore thumb, your soul and body as one. You probably dived into the portal to this world to try and save your friends. Makes sense, from what I've seen of you."

It was true. He was like her – loyal to a fault. They'd both get into any type of shit to save the people they loved; if she hadn't made a wish for Madoka, it would have been for some other person, someone who captivated her, the focus of her obsessions. Or a family member (not that she had any of those).

"Anyway." She frowned and tried to remember what she had been talking about. "I've been through this so many times. Hundreds, I think. You probably won't survive either. Just because your body and soul are intact doesn't give you an advantage. Taking this witch, for instance: it's more than I can do on my own, even if I stop time." She shook her head. "And no matter what I do, it always comes back."

She wondered if she'd ever cry about that. It wasn't particularly bad, just… kind of there. It wasn't traumatic, like the first few times she'd seen her friends die. It was just… frustrating. "I try and try to keep Madoka safe, and it always ends up this way. Everyone dies, and I go back again. Every time, Madoka starts the same. That smiling face, that innocent laugh, and then… the other soul begins to remember things. We both suffer from it. One or the other goes mad every now or again. Sometimes I forget who she is, and then remember everything. Sometimes I have to clean my soul gem just to feel happy again."

No response, still. She checked her time. A few more minutes. "By this time, I've probably accumulated as many memories as DIO used to have. I never did find out what happens if your soul gem goes all black. Hah. Perhaps I'll find out some day."

She looked out, onto the city broken by Walpurgis Night, the witch. She'd started giving them names around the fourteenth cycle, just to start relieving the boredom of repetition. It wasn't as if it actually mattered, anyway.

"It's weird, isn't it? Sometimes the smallest things can change your heart. When I was first trapped in this Stand, I had no power, no friends, no money… And then Madoka… She introduced me to the power of magical girls – people – and she… helped me. Cared for me when no one else would. And… when I wished, even though I knew it wouldn't change who I was in the real world, even though it meant I had to go through those loops to save her… It was her I wished for. To be someone who could help her in return, even if we were trapped here forever. And it's worked, sometimes, until she dies again. But sometimes, even then…"

She stared out into empty space. The debris around her flickered, before she managed to regain control of time; there was no movement from the Stand under the rubble. "You're lucky. You'll probably die quickly, even though you're so strong. You'll never have to feel the pain of... this."

(And what was 'this', again? Friendship? Love? Obsession? She didn't know any more.)

"Well, that's it, anyway." She got up, finally, and dusted off her skirt. It really did help to talk to someone, even if they were frozen in time and wouldn't even notice you had been there.

He still wasn't moving, although she could have sworn… never mind. It was fine.

She pulled his unmoving body out from underneath the rubble, carefully so as not to give him any unexplainable marks. (He had so much skin on display. How could he stand it?) "Good luck, Kujo Jotaro. If you ever get to the real world, murder DIO properly for me, all right?"

With that, she left, starting time back up once more, and the boy was falling again along with all the debris, in a slightly different trajectory than he had been in before.

* * *

Jotaro blinked.

Well, that was unexpected.

The fall was going to take a while from up here, he could tell. Around him, pieces of witch and buildings flew around indiscriminately. He was surprised to see a witch having this much effect outside of a barrier; based on the rudimentary training and titbits they'd received from Mami and the others, witches barely left the magical spaces they enclosed themselves in.

Admittedly, he had only ever seen two, maximum three other witches, so he couldn't exactly judge. And he hadn't even seen the one Mami had killed. But, still….

He looked around again, searching for a way to break his fall; perhaps if he started jumping from rock to falling rock he'd be able to slow himself somehow. Or not. He considered his options, most of them stupid and some downright insane. He knew that he should be able to work out a plan based on Star Platinum's abilities and reactions, but… the memory thing was happening again. He had no idea what he could actually _do_ as a giant hunk of purple muscle, other than punch things really hard and fast. Below, the roof of a building was coming to meet him.

Quickly, he turned over, aiming his feet towards the flat, grey roof – it was better than nothing, and –

He landed, safely, and realised that he should trust in this strange transformation more. That was the whole point of being a magical guy, right? To become something more than yourself, to gain access to abilities you never knew you had.

Something pink caught his eye.

"Madoka-chan."

"Jotaro-kun! You're still alive!" She ran up to him and, before he could protest, wrapped her tiny arms around his purple neck.

"Ah…" He pushed her away and frowned. "It's not like the witch is even defeated."

"No, but… you fell, and…" A shake of her head. "For a moment there, it looked like you were going to get crushed!"

"Yeah. I was." Jotaro rubbed his forehead and turned away to pace. He couldn't get what had happened out of his head, and… "The – the Stand. Homura's Stand. Stops time. Fuck."

Back and forth. Feeling the building underneath his booted feet. Feeling his body turn and turn again. Madoka took a breath.

"Okay. So… She saved you?"

"Saved me. And… talked to me."

"What?"

Back, forth, back, forth. Keep the movement going. Don't stop, because stopping would be like –

(trapped, he had been trapped, no movement, just fucking _there_ , fossilised, encased in the amber of time, and it hadn't even been a fucking enemy, probably, just Homura and her shitty problems and treating him like a fucking confessional, and he hadn't been able to _move_ , like being in a fucking coma or something)

"She fucking… talked to me. When time stopped. I couldn't move but she was just… talking." He waved his hands, up and down, and couldn't stop, because it was right and moving and fine, and he was stressed and _fuck_. He wished he had a cigarette, but they were in his coat pocket, had disappeared with the rest of his clothes. Damn.

"She… why?"

"Dunno. Said a lot of stuff. Think it's important."

"Oh." She wasn't asking too many questions at once, which was good. She was just watching him, which wasn't cool. He felt naked in this transformation and he hated her eyes on him, dammit. He should – should he de-transform? But they were fighting – he was fighting…

Slowly, awkwardly, turning back and forth and flapping his hands in the air, he managed to get out what Homura had told him. The important stuff, anyway; he left out the bit where Homura did everything for Madoka like a creepy fucking stalker or something. As long as she got the general gist of it, it would be fine. He couldn't put another thing on her now.

"So… she's done this kind of thing before?"

"Lots. Sounds like it. Every loop has a new batch of people."

"Whoah." She adjusted her skirt. "There must have been a whole lot. How good is this guy?"

"Don't know. Very." Pace back, forth, clench fists, run thumbs over knuckles over and over again. He didn't do this. He was okay. He wasn't okay. "Maybe some of them escaped. I dunno."

"Still… such a massive, complicated Stand, keeping people trapped for who knows how long. Must not be easy." She frowned. "I didn't even know it was possible for a stand to get this big."

"Hold on." Forth, back. Forth. Flap. Fists. "Is it this big, or –"

"Oh my God." Madoka caught his meaning immediately, and gasped. "It's us who've shrunk."

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know."

She thought about this, biting her lip and looking out at the massive witch. It was still plagued by explosions left and right; probably Homura wanted to be rid of it as fast as possible. It was battered but didn't seem to have faltered yet. (They were almost too, similar, Homura and him. If it wasn't for her overpowered bullshit of a Stand, they could practically be siblings.)

(Was it her own stand she was using? Was it a leftover from someone else? He didn't know.)

"It makes sense," she said. "It seems like shrinking a soul into something more manageable is a good way to get rid of people. Especially if your body dies in the interval."

Oh. There was a thought. "Fuck. We might not still be alive in the real world."

"You might be." Madoka sighed. "You threw yourself in, body and soul. You'll at least have whatever's left of you in here, if you get out."

"I'll fucking…" He clenched his fists, once, twice, again. Wave of the arms. "I'll fucking revive whoever it was I came in after. Make sure the Stand user releases you all. I will."

"Thanks. Jotaro-kun. Really. I'm glad you told me about all this."

"Yeah."

"But…" She gestured gently towards the massive mountain of magic behind her. "Think you can take this on okay now?"

"Right."

"Maybe if you pick me up, I can come and fight it too?"

Okay. That was okay. They were joking. He could handle that. He could calm down and do this. Okay. "You're not even a magical girl."

"I should… I could talk to Homura? Get her to explain stuff?"

"What more is there to explain?" He slowed down, finally, and stood next to Madoka. "We're in deep shit."

"Ah, so eloquent. Truly you're a linguistic genius."

Jotaro grunted, and jumped back into the air.


	21. The Only Thing I Have Left to Guide Me

Tunnelling into the witch was hard. Seriously hard, like trying to break teeth made of pure, solid diamonds (and where did that image come from?). He kept going anyway, determined to split the witch apart, explosions and the rebound of his own fists shaking the massive structure. It wasn't really getting as far as he could have wanted.

"Ora Ora Ora Ora –"

And Homura appeared, tutting quietly at the human-sized indent in the very clearly not human-sized witch, and he couldn't move.

"Man, Jotaro-kun. You're really going at it, huh? I suppose it is pretty important." She sighed, and pulled a small device from behind her silver disc. "But this is really getting sad to watch. It looks like your Stand doesn't have as much power in this realm. And to be honest, it's a waste. You won't remember anything about the Stand user or how to defeat an entire city. That's just how things are."

She put the device in the centre of the indent. "Best to find another way out. Not that there is one." A shrug. "Oh well. You'll probably be able to react to this bomb pretty quickly, right? It's not that I don't want to help, but you actually managed to make a weak spot now, and if you move, the witch will definitely notice something. As much as a monster like that _can_ notice things."

She smiled and patted him gently on the head (how did she reach?). "See ya."

Time resumed.

He jumped, and –

it wasn't enough.

* * *

He woke up, covered in cuts and bruises and probably with a few broken bones as well. Something was digging into his shoulder, his chest, his arm. Ow.

Goddammit. At least this time he remembered what he had been doing. _So_ nice of this Stand user to allow him that.

"Jotaro-kun?"

He opened his eyes. Madoka was sitting beside him, looking out at the destruction ravaging the city with a sad smile on her face. She turned her head towards him and held up a ragged piece of cloth. "You dropped something."

"My hat." He stretched out and accepted it from her, gratefully pulling it down onto his head. He felt his modified jacket cushioning his neck, and relaxed. At least all his clothes were safely on him.

"Are you… feeling okay? You de-transformed on the way down. Can you feel your legs?"

For a moment, it seemed like a non-sequitur, but – "Oh. No. I can't. Why the fuck –"

He sat up, and almost rammed his nose into a piece of concrete. There was a small, jagged piece of building on his legs. (How had it got there? His head felt muggy again, and not from the amnesia this time.)

"I'm so sorry, Jotaro-kun. I never meant for this to happen to you. Not after Caesar. Not again. I –"

He heard water drip down onto the roof of the building. (How had he got back to the same building again? Or was it a different one, and Madoka had got here just in time? He didn't know.)

"I'm sorry, Jotaro-kun. I should have known you couldn't – couldn't handle this on your own, I just – I'm sorry!" He heard a small sob in her voice, and that was not a good sound, he didn't –

"'S not your fault. Madoka-chan." He stared at the wall of concrete just in front of him; there was definitely no way he could get out of there without hurting his legs more than they already were. "'S the Stand user making things fucked up."

Another sob. "I'm sorry…"

"Magic is dangerous. Had to happen eventually."

Drip, drip. "The portal into here is one way, isn't it? We're all going to die here, aren't we? You and me and all the codename personalities, and then Homura will loop again, and it'll just keep going and going... I'm so sorry."

"DIO got out."

"That bastard…" She sniffled. "He had an agreement with Homura-chan and the Stand user, they said it themselves."

"So… we die, I guess. Can't transform like this."

 _Not exactly, Kujo Jotaro._ The cat thing. That damn alien cat thing. Where had he been all this time? Was he a captured soul or –

"Fuck. Kyubey's part of it. Fuck."

 _I repeat: not exactly. But I am here to offer the light of hope, the olive branch of peace, so to speak._

"Fuck you."

"Jotaro-kun…" Madoka stared at the little white thing. "Wait. I… I understand. Someone has to do something about all this, and… I want to. I owe it to Homura-chan. To Sayaka-chan, Kyuoko-chan. To Mami-san. I have to do this."

"Wait, what?"

"Please, Jotaro-kun." She stood up and faced Kyubey. "Please."

"Don't look to me for permission, we barely know each other. But –"

"Okay. I won't ask you." Madoka nodded at Kyubey. "Your wishes can make anything possible in the world of this Stand, correct?"

 _You are correct, Madoka._ Kyubey swished his tail. _Do you wish to make a contract?_

"Are you the Stand user of this city?"

 _I am… a helper. We work together to make this world function._ Another swish. _It's too much to handle for just one person otherwise._

"Right. So you can act independently."

 _Indeed. Tell me your wish and I will do it, even if it goes against the Owner of this Stand._

Madoka gave a big, nervous smile to Jotaro, and took a breath.

"I wish… that every person who has ever been trapped in this Stand will go back to the real world with their original bodies, spirits, and minds intact."

 _Very well, Kaname Madoka. Prepare yourself._


	22. Stairway to Heaven

The magic ripped into her soul, ripped into her very being, and she felt _something_ pulling at her essence, and then there was… a light, coming from her chest, pink and kind of fuzzy. She gazed at her soul gem in awe. It was pink, like her hair and her eyes, and she really should have expected that. She breathed in softly, and felt the power flow within her.

She understood what she had to do. So she transformed, frills and pink lace fluffing out around her. It wasn't exactly a practical outfit, but then again… Jotaro wore that silly jacket and chain every single day. In comparison, this marshmallow was practically normal.

She felt a bow and a single arrow materialise in her hands. Pink, of course, with the string of the bow made of a branch of thorns. It wasn't going to be comfortable, but… ah, she was wearing white gloves now. Perfect.

She pulled it back, aiming for the sky above the witch, the clouds murky and dead above her, and released. The arrow shot far, far into the air, trailing a long, pink strand of thorns behind it –

And the arrow exploded like a firework in the sky, raining down pink ropes and clearing the sky around the witch. Pink lights seemed to search into every corner of the city, even the witch itself – larger holes than either Homura or Jotaro could make began to shoot clean through her lacy outfit. It looked almost as if the tendrils were carrying pieces of the upside-down behemoth up, into the sky, never to return.

"Whoah."

 _This doesn't mean no new victims are captured, you realise. We can always lie low until you least expect it._

"We'll manage." She felt herself grin. "I'm sure my grandson and I can figure something out."

Jotaro opened his mouth at that, as if to protest that he definitely wasn't related to her, but before he could say anything, a pink strand of thorns wrapped around his chest. It was time. She felt her memories clear for a moment, and allowed the other guy in her head to talk. "Let's beat up those idiots when we get back, Jotaro-kun. You and me together, right?"

"Wait! Madoka-chan, what about you?"

A stray thorn stroked at her neck, and took out a little part of her. She smiled. "Don't worry about me. 'Joseph Joestar' is leaving my head as we speak and, well, it would be kind of a dud if my magic didn't work on me. Maybe one day I'll see you in the real world."

"Madoka –"

There was no more.

* * *

 _You realize, Kaname Madoka, that we only allowed you to do this with the assurance that we will immediately get revenge. We are not so stupid that we will not set up traps for your Stand user friends; we will surely kill the Crusaders even without the assistance of the Stand Ra. You may not realise it, but Incubator's Metal Storm has a lot of power even in the real world._

"I know. I trust Jotaro, and Mr. Joestar. They will beat you, I know they will, before you can curse anyone else."

 _We will simply curse you another way, then._

"You're bluffing. You made a contract with me to get everyone safely back in their bodies."

 _We never said anything about allowing you to continue your lives subsequently. We have many friends who would love to get their hands on a friend of the Joestars. Even you._

"I'm prepared to take that risk."

 _And for your friends? The girls who were vessels for the other minds? What about them? They do not have Stands in the real world._

"We can handle ourselves. I know we can. I know the number for a foundation which can help us, thanks to Mr Joestar's memories. We don't need to be afraid."

 _Very well, then, Kaname Madoka. We shall see._

 _(Nothing really matters, anyway. Let them see what happens when DIO is truly the lord of all.)_


	23. There's No Way I'll Ever Regret This

He woke up, bruised and covered in cuts, and probably with a few broken bones as well. He tried wiggling his toes, and was gratified to feel a small response inside his shoes. So Madoka's wish had restored him, back to whatever condition he had been in upon entering Mitakihara.

He was back in Cairo. Now, he remembered their mission, their search for DIO, the constant attacks. He remembered the camaraderie, the friendships they'd built over the last forty-some days (god, the time had gone so fast). He remembered the one who'd made it all bearable for him. A miraculous return.

He remembered a curiosity shop on the side of the street that had somehow managed to draw them all in one by one, until only he was left, confused and lonely.

He remembered the owner and her very fluffy white cat.

"Fuck."

"Jotaro! You're awake!" The voice was familiar and comforting, and Jotaro almost didn't want to open his eyes, in case he was imagining it.

Kakyoin Noriaki crouched over him, his red spiral of curly hair dangling over one side of his face. "You okay there?"

"You're… alive." He smiled a little, for the first time in who knows how long, admiring the faint embroidery on the collar of Kakyoin's familiar green gakuran.

"I'm alive, I think." A smile, small and peaceful, like he'd just come from a wonderful dream.

"Don't die again."

He nodded, and tucked a stray hair behind Jotaro's ear. (He didn't mind so much, when it was Kakyoin.) "I won't. I promise."

For a moment, he allowed himself to lie in peace, staring at the ceiling with no obligations or –

"Kakyoin. Stand."

"I know. We need to get going."

He sat up, wincing slightly, and looked around. They were in what looked like a large store room, with an old bookshelf and a few carboard boxes and _dammit_ , not what he was looking for. "Where're the others?"

"In the curiosity shop." Kakyoin gestured towards the room's only door. "I think we all got put back where our bodies were in the real world."

"Right. How's it work?"

Kakyoin shrugged. "The woman has to touch you, and then you're transported to her… other world. I think the cat just projects its Stand into hers for… you know."

"Yeah. Let's go make sure it doesn't happen again."

"That's what I like to hear!" Kakyoin helped him to his feet. With a flourish, he handed him –

"My hat. Thanks."

"I hate to see you without it." A smile, and Kakyoin laid a hand on the doorknob. "I don't remember anything after Mami-san died, but I remember you still had that hat."

"Yeah."

"Although – were Mami's eyes and ears deceiving me? Or were you a lot more talkative that usual? Around girls, no less?"

He pulled the hat down over his eyes. "Shut up. You _were_ a girl."

"Well, I can't argue with that." A shrug. "I'm glad you got everyone out, though."

"Not yet."

Kakyoin nodded, and turned the door knob quietly. "Then let's get them out."

* * *

It was clear from the chaos in the curiosity shop that there had been a major fight, or possibly a 3-for-the-price-of-2 sale: pieces of junk littered every flat surface, as if the giant witch had been through wrecking the place.

(It wasn't real. Witches didn't exist.)

(They had something – some _body_ worse.)

In one corner, a bundle of red robes made an odd movement and groaned; on the other side of the room, a stiff brush of white hair was beginning, slowly, to rise up from behind an antique writing-desk. And there, by the door, slumped on one side, was –

"Old man." Jotaro looked at the three slow-moving but definitely alive bodies, and allowed himself to feel relieved. "Did any of you see the Stand user?"

" _Quoi? Alors…_ "

"Holy shit…"

"… _im 'akun_ … _'atawaqae…_ "

Jotaro rubbed his forehead under his cap. "Good grief."

"Come on, Mr Joestar, Avdol, Polnareff. We need to find her before –" Kakyoin hesitated – "before DIO makes her capture anyone else."

"The cat, too." He may not have been entirely clear on the details yet, but Jotaro was pretty certain of that. "They work together. Almost _too_ well."

But none of them listened, because as Joseph put it, "Oh my god! You were all girls!"


	24. My Very Best Friends

For the next half an hour, Jotaro did his very best not to fucking kill all four of his companions at every possible moment. They just could not stop _talking_ , about everything, as if the Stand user's trail wasn't growing colder by the second. Fuck's sake. They needed to defeat everyone who was a servant of DIO, they needed to make sure that the world was a safer place – most of all, they needed to make sure that this person didn't give DIO any more vital information about them than the vampire already seemed to have.

But right now, the only thought that concerned every single other Crusader was the fact that _they had been girls_. Even Kakyoin, after his initial cool reaction, was getting a little shaken up by it: he kept looking down at his non-existent boobs and blushing furiously.

And, of course, if he was embarrassed, Joseph was absolutely crazy, alternating between 'I saved all your asses even as a girl' and 'Shit, I never thought I'd actually have a body like that'. Occasionally he would look at Jotaro in amazement, as if he'd never seen his grandson in his life.

"Shit, you're actually really tall, kiddo!"

He didn't blink, merely staring vacantly at the bookshelf behind the old man's head. "Really? Amazing. I hadn't noticed."

Kakyoin frowned beside him. "Was that – ?" Jotaro's elbow rammed into him; he shut up.

"I've gone all these years bumping my head on doorways and reaching stuff off high shelves completely clueless." He gave the old man a solemn, straight-faced bow, like people did in these situations. "Thank you, old man, for finally unravelling this completely unexplainable mystery."

"I can't believe it." The redhead stared at the ceiling with a manic grin. "I can't believe it. Kujo Jotaro, using sarcasm. This is unbelievable." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "I'm so proud, Jotaro."

"Fuck off, Mami-san." That prompted another glance at the lack-of-boobs.

" _Merde._ " Polnareff stared into space blankly. "Did I really – become a witch?"

Avdol nodded from his corner, shuffling a deck of cards so he didn't have to look at any of them. "I may have had to… kill you. A little. I apologise."

"Fuck, a little? I died! Dying on a regular basis is _your_ thing, not mine!"

"At least you didn't have any bathroom adventures this time, _Polnareff._ " Somehow Avdol managed to make the Frenchman's name sound like an insult. "Those, I seem to remember, _are_ your thing. And, for the record, I've only come back from the dead twice now, so it's not 'regular'."

"You mean –" the stupid, eyebrow-less face creased slightly – "you actually died to save me? Again? You didn't have to do that…"

"Kyouko and I agreed that it was the best course of action." Avdol crossed his arms, frowning, and tried not to look embarrassed. "She liked Sayaka-chan a lot."

(It really felt weird to hear those kinds of honorifics coming out of Avdol's mouth. It wasn't natural, not the way it had been with the girls.)

The white-haired man shrugged, letting out an embarrassed half-smile. "Sayaka didn't have enough memory left half the time to like anyone. I can't believe how similar we ended up being, _sacre bleu…_ "

With a scoff, Avdol turned away. "You were lucky. Kyouko was Christian. I had the devil of a time – no pun intended – convincing her to let me do some fortune telling. But…" He gestured towards Jotaro with one hand. "It caused us to meet up with you three, after all, so she allowed it."

"Ah, religious differences…" Kakyoin was still staring up at the ceiling wistfully. "So, you both died, and… how did we get out of that again? How much time has actually passed?"

"I know the answer to the first question, at least," replied Joseph, more quietly than usual. "Madoka made a wish that set all of our souls free. Somehow, she convinced Kyubey and his owner to let everyone out without a fuss, and… I think I know why."

"What?" Suddenly, everyone stared at him, various degrees of understanding or confusion on their faces.

Jotaro was the first to fully catch on. "It's a trap."

"Probably." The old man frowned. "We didn't think of it at the time, but just because we're not trapped in the Stand at the moment doesn't mean they can't make our lives worse here. Dammit… I thought we had transcended time and space for a moment there, like a god."

"God _dess_ , more like." He really couldn't help himself; his grandfather was an excellent target for such embarrassment. "You were all girls except for me."

As he had expected, Polnareff, Avdol, and Kakyoin all looked away, blushing furiously, but –

"I've been a woman before, it's completely normal." Joseph shrugged. "It would have been funnier with some tequila or something, though…"

"Good grief. Your life experiences are fucked." He pulled down his hat for the millionth time that afternoon. "What was that about saving someone from something with the love of your life?"

That actually got something from Joseph, at last; he flushed as pink as Madoka's hair and laughed nervously. "Aah… you remember that…"

"What was the name? Not Suzie…. See-zu, was it? She-zo?"

"Jotaro, come on, that's not fair…" He hid his face behind his metal hand and cringed. "I wasn't myself…"

"Neither was Madoka. She liked girls. Especially people's mothers, apparently."

"Stoooop… no more…" Joseph's whining almost rattled the windows, and Jotaro raised his eyebrows in satisfaction. He'd never let the old man live this down for as long as they lived.

Avdol coughed awkwardly. "We should do something about this Stand user."

"That's true." With a little more eagerness than was necessary, Kakyoin took up the change of subject. "It's been a long time since anyone captured all five of us like that, and they're probably hatching a plan to attack us as soon as we leave the curiosity shop, or even before. We're at a significant disadvantage, as we're not even sure how much time has passed since we entered the Stand."

Polnareff slumped further down onto the floor with a grunt, and tried to fix his column of very ugly hair. "They've probably assembled some more combat-oriented Stand users to fight us, or something. We cannot hide here forever, not with DIO still alive. _Putain de merde._ "

"Tell me about it." Kakyoin began to twist his hair spiral in one hand and _goddamn_ , why did Jotaro not see Mami's resemblance to him earlier? They were practically a perfect match, minus the boobs, and Jotaro could definitely live with that. That little sad smile like the weight of the world was on their shoulders, like they had no one else to lean on.

Jotaro wouldn't mind being leant on.

"So, Mr Joestar…" Another awkward cough. Was Avdol blushing? He definitely seemed more hesitant than usual. "Do you have a plan? Ideas?"

"Umm… let's see…. We can't run, we can't hide, playing dead would waste too much time…"

"Old man, can't you take a spirit photo or something to find out where the Stand users are and what day it is and stuff?"

Joseph Joestar brightened. "That's a good idea! Only…" He hesitated, and looked around at the clutter of the old-fashioned shop. "I don't think we'll be able to find a camera or a TV in here."

"I'll search for something." A green blur appeared around Kakyoin's shoulder and – fuck, Jotaro had almost expected him to transform like Mami, but of course that wasn't how things worked in the real world, of course their Stands were separate entities now that their souls were in the right bodies. Hierophant Green – and it was green, wasn't it, why had it been gold inside the Stand? – spread out its tentacles into every corner of the little shop.

Man, he was messed up in the head. And he hadn't even been a girl. No wonder the others were looking so spacy and awkward, no wonder it was taking forever to get on and fight these idiots, no wonder –

Kakyoin sighed and put his head in his hands, dismissing Hierophant Green with a faint hissing sound. "Nothing. This place is full of antiques."

"Then…" Polnareff groaned. "They could set the whole place on fire and we wouldn't know."

"I do happen to know a few things about fire, Polnareff, in case you forgot." Magician's Red gave a little wave.

"Well, yeah, but they could gas us!"

"Wait." There was… something behind the old man's head, and suddenly Jotaro recognised what it was. "Pass me that snow globe behind you, old man."

It was exactly how he remembered it: plain, slightly dusty, but with a pretty diorama laid out inside. A cityscape, with a few skyscrapers arranged into a careful display, along with a few green blobs that were probably meant to represent trees. The base was, perhaps, some type of light wood; there was no plaque to suggest which city it was meant to represent.

On the base, someone had scratched a series of symbols, a few kanji that weren't quite clear, plus –

"Old man. Can you read this?" The symbols were square and blocky, English but not English, with symbols that didn't seem to fit exactly into what he knew.

"Ah, um… this is Russian, I think…" Joseph squinted at the writing and frowned. "Erm… I think it says 'Mitaki Putin'. Why, is it important?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Well, probably not, but Jotaro had long since learned not to underestimate his grandfather. " _That_ is the whole of Mitakihara City. Putin Mitaki's Stand trapped us inside."

"Ah, of course!" Avdol wrinkled his forehead and stared at 'Mitakihara'. "A Stand that creates a world of its own based on a less detailed template, able to trap human souls inside…"

" _Mon dieu_ … And, of course, she could transport us there by touching us. I remember…"

"That still doesn't help us figure out a plan," replied Kakyoin. "Even if the Stand user has finished using this vessel, it's possible that she can find something else. There's no shortage of kitschy snow globes."

"Ugh. What a pain."

"You said it, Jotaro."

"How about… we just go and fight 'em, huh?" Joseph shrugged. "Worth a try, right? We'll have the benefit of surprise and numbers."

"We don't even know where they are, old man."

"They won't have gone far." Suddenly, decisively, Joseph stood up and grinned. "They'll stick around to make sure whatever they're planning goes right. There's no way those fuckers will just let us go, so might as well stand and fight, huh?"

They nodded reluctantly.

"That's the spirit!" Joseph turned towards the door. "Follow your Goddess!"

"Good grief…"


	25. Ra's Putin and Metal Storm's Incubator

They filed their way out into the street, keeping an eye out for Stand attacks; none, so far, were forthcoming. The whole area seemed almost entirely deserted, as if even DIO's minions kept away from the place.

Jotaro found himself wondering where Iggy had got to. The damn dog had probably wandered off again to eat or do whatever it was he did when he didn't give a shit about their lives.

"I was expecting… an attack." Kakyoin's muted voice seemed unreasonably loud in the cold and empty air (and this was Cairo, for god's sake, why was it cold?). It was like the fog Stand all over again, and he shuddered.

A few quiet murmurs of assent from the others echoed in the uncannily still air. (They were absolutely sure this was Cairo, right? Not some ghost town in the middle of nowhere?)

Avdol spoke Jotaro's thoughts. "Perhaps she has created yet another illusory world, Allah preserve us."

Jotaro could only grind his teeth in response.

A light tapping began to echo through the little street, a vaguely familiar clop-clop of something – or someone – getting nearer until –

"Greetings, Joestar and company." The woman was tall, thin, with white hair mostly hidden by a plain blue headscarf such as many women wore in this area. She seemed to be dressed in the typical robes of the region, with brown and blue robes hanging lightly over her body, but was clearly not Egyptian; her pale skin and almond eyes were proof of that.

"What do you want, bitch?"

The woman shrugged, a small gesture that could have meant anything and nothing. Behind her –

behind her, a slinking white shape coiled forward, and Jotaro half expected to see that second pair of ears with those floating golden rings. But it wasn't Kyubey, just a very fluffy white cat, its long fur dragging on the fur in places and its red eyes staring into his soul. (So that was why Iggy was staying away.)

"Allow me to introduce myself, Joestar-san." The woman stepped forward lightly, leaning against a lamp post and staring at them coldly. "My name is Putin Mitaki, or in the Western order Mitaki Putin. I believe you have found the snow globe which I so recently used to capture you." She gestured casually at the little thing, still clutched in Joseph's hand as if it were a trinket he were bringing home for his wife. "That city is the vessel for my Stand, Ra, to do its work, although I can use other means, as you have no doubt guessed." A sly glance down towards the cat, which seemed to be waiting patiently for her to finish. "And this is my cat, Incubator – or Kyubey, as you know him. His Stand, Metal Storm, wipes and alters memories, even the deepest memories of your heart. He is the source of the entire 'magic' system which you experienced, and he is the one who changed your memories of how even your own Stands should work."

"You… You can't have." Joseph, like all of them, stared at the cat, completely horrified. "That's too complicated, too – too dangerous! It's impossible – messing with the power of Stands themselves!"

"Hmm. Interesting. And yet you dared to wish for a return to the real world, even with such a possibility over your head. You could have stayed there, stayed happy magical girls together, never having to worry about assassins or vampires or blood feuds…" She moistened her lips. "So simple. You'd take his rings and be married to a simpler life."

Jotaro brought his hand up in front of his face. He hadn't noticed, but of course the little silver ring was gone. It hadn't been real in the first place, perhaps just a way for Kyubey's Stand to access their memories inside 'Mitakihara'. He felt… disappointed, as if he somehow wanted a reminder of his Stand to decorate himself. Beside him, most of the others were doing the same, as if once more awakening form Kyubey's trance.

And then there was Joseph Joestar, the old bastard, with a short, sharp laugh, and – "Ah, dear miss Putin! I have been engaged three times, twice to men, and married exactly once; I'm sure I'd be happy to fit something else in, with my wife's permission!" A hearty chuckle, as if this revelation is totally normal and un-concerning, and Jotaro couldn't see how such a flamboyant personality was fused with Madoka of all people. She had seemed like such a nice, quiet little girl… most of the time. It was hard to tell how much of what he'd seen had been really her and how much had been from the weird old man in her brain.

He wondered if he'd ever meet the real life Madoka. Perhaps, if she remembered this, they could be friends. He'd introduce her to Kakyoin, maybe, and she'd be with Homura or the others, and they'd laugh about this ridiculous situation they had been through. It would be nice, to have a girl as just a friend, nothing more; the annoying ones could go to hell. He felt safer knowing she wouldn't bug him for a reply to her confession or something.

Jotaro shook his head slightly, and returned to the conversation.

"So you refuse to back down, Joestar-san?" purred Putin Mitaki, sounding pleased. "Very well then. We thank you for a most entertaining… journey."

Something was wrong. He could feel it, feel pairs of eyes on him that shouldn't have been there. There was a metallic tinge to the air, as if it was about to snow.

"Do you know, Joestar-san, why Incubator and I always work as a team?" She stepped forward once more, relinquishing the lamp post to get a little closer to the five of them. He heard Polnareff swearing under his breath – " _Mon Dieu…_ ". It almost, but not quite, sounded like 'DIO'.

"We work together, Joestar-san, because it is more merciful to everyone to have their memories taken inside my Stand. Dear Kyubey likes to keep his prey captive and healthy for a while, after all. There's no reason for it, but…" She smiled blankly, her whole attitude and expression full of a cold, hard, killing ambition. "This time, I'm afraid, there will be no mercy for you."

And suddenly it felt like all the wind had been knocked out of him and he was on the ground with the others, choking and gasping and – dammit, of course they would have orchestrated a Stand attack to take out their most important targets, what had he been thinking? What had the old man been thinking? They hadn't thought of doing even the slightest preliminary search with Hierophant or on foot, and now they were paying for it. Probably with their lives.

"Pathetic." The woman looked down at all of them in disgust, her face haughty and her voice low. "These are the deadly Joestars that take out every assassin Lord DIO sends?"

With no answer, she slowly made her way closer to them, still looking rather cautious. Smart. "This, Joestar-san, is the power of Incubator's Metal Storm: with the power to change every memory you have and more. Your memories make up part of your soul, and your soul affects your Stand. If the smallest change is made –" She smiled again, leaning low over their writhing bodies. "Well, Kyubey can take your whole Stand away. That's what he's doing now – erasing the imprint that your Stands have. I'm told it can be quite painful in the real world."

"Unforgivable." Jotaro grasped at the ground and, shaking, made his way up to his feet again, trying to ignore the pain streaking through his body. "Absolutely unforgivable."

He took a step towards Putin and the cat, bunching his fists slightly; his body wavered in the cold air for a moment, but he managed to keep his footing to stand face to face with the white-haired bitch. "Kidnapping innocent souls and torturing them for pleasure is unforgivable."

Jotaro adjusted his stance, lower and more balanced, and crossed his arms loosely over his chest, pointing with both hands at Mitaki Putin. "In the name of the Star, bitch, I will punish you!"

He punched her, hard, in the face.

"ORA – FUCKIN' – ORA!"

Kyubey was next, before the thing tried to scamper away; Jotaro didn't fail to notice that the white cat's Stand was still in effect. He could even see the Stand itself now, looking just the same as when it had offered Madoka and Joseph their wish, swishing its tail in tandem with its user.

So, of course, he picked up Incubator – the real, non-Stand Incubator – by its tail, and threw.

The white cat disappeared, far, far above the rooftops, and Jotaro finally felt its Stand release its hold. He sighed and pulled his cap securely over his face.

"Good grief."


	26. Long Travels, Goodbye My Friend

(Then Iggy was dead. Avdol was dead. The old man was dead with a knife in his throat.

And –

Kakyoin was dead.

 _Open your eyes, look up to the skies, and see –_

And DIO paused the world. Like Homura, he had a habit of chatting during frozen time, except with more intent to murder. Perhaps he got the idea from her, or vice versa. Unlike her, he counted the time passing, as much as you could measure seconds in a world where infinite motion has stopped. Five, six, seven. Days and minutes not passing because of him, because of them.

He didn't mention the mad girl he had been.

And Jotaro, to his own surprise, stopped time.

He… won.

They were all still dead.)

* * *

 _(I wish…)_

* * *

He woke up, healthy and whole in body, with tears on his face. That was rare, these days; what had he been dreaming about?

In the other room, he heard someone wheeling towards the phone which had woken him up. Already awake, then; perhaps that meant he'd be getting a cooked breakfast. A click of plastic, as the phone moved from its protective base.

"Hello? Ah, Madoka, how are you? How's your family?"

Madoka… he had been dreaming about her, of course. About the time they met in the Stand. How could he forget that?

"That's good. Yes, I'm fine, thank you. Hmm? Oh, he's still asleep. Stayed up late with his thesis again. Him and his starfish… Yes, I quite agree. All right, I'll tell him that. Yes, Holy's fine, better than ever I think."

He opened his eyes and got up, slowly, trying not to make any noise.

"And how's Homura doing? Good? Yes, I expect adjusting to not having a Stand can be difficult, can't it? Especially after all that time. Yes. Yes, I suppose it is different out in the real world."

What should he wear today? There was that turtleneck that clung tightly to him, applying just the right amount of pressure to be comforting rather than restrictive. Or maybe a button-up with a V-neck sweater. It didn't matter: he was taking them both anyway.

"Yes, they're both doing fine, although they're worried about Iggy. He's getting old these days. Mmm. Oh, well actually, I heard through the grapevine, that… Polnareff's finally going to propose! Or Avdol will finally give in and do it for him. Ha, yes, third life's the charm, right? Of course they'll invite you all. You're like sisters to him, to both of them."

His white hat sat on his desk as it always did, waiting for him to bring it gently down over his eyes. Beside it, a few pins – the dolphin one from Madoka, the weird triangle from Homura that probably meant something deep – gleamed in the light. He took them in his hands.

"And how are Sayaka and Kyouko? What? Again? Well, tell them they're being silly. It's obvious how much they really do love each other, deep down. Yes, of course."

He glanced at himself in the mirror. Yes, that was right. That was good.

"Mr Joestar is doing fine, I think. Of course, the dementia… And he's going deaf now, too, a little, and… Yes, of course, I'll pass on my regards."

He paused, just behind the door to the kitchen.

"Well, it was a shock to everyone, especially Mr Joestar himself. It's awkward, but what can you do? Exactly. Him? Ha, he's having trouble adjusting to the fact that he has an uncle younger than him. Hm. Yes, indeed."

Was his shirt on okay? It felt a little ticklish. No, that was just a bug.

"Jolyne's with Mami. They get on so well, bless them… She's such a good babysitter, better than the mother any day. And with Jolyne's new Stand, they're perfect for each other. I trust them to manage while we're away. Of course you can come see her if you want. When we're back."

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a white shape, perched as if waiting for him on the back of the chair. He blinked. It was just his coat, of course.

"We will. I promise I won't let any harm come to him. Hierophant would never let that happen. Ah, don't worry, Madoka, there's only one person there to worry about, it's not like Morioh is some hive of scum and villainy. We'll be fine! And besides, you forget that he can literally stop time now, although it's less than Homura could."

He laid his left hand on the door handle, admiring the understated silver ring on his third finger for a moment. An emerald gem, with spherical ruby stones on either side: the colours of another person's soul. Not too large, of course; he wasn't much for flashy shows of affection. They both knew that.

"Yes, we're leaving today. Our flight is in six hours, and we'll arrive… sometime in the early morning, I think, to have time to get to Morioh. Yes, we're almost all the way packed. Don't be ridiculous, you can't make it all the way there at such short notice. We'll pop by and visit you. Yes, I'm sure, don't worry about us. Yes, I understand. All right. Okay. We'll see you then. Okay. Bye!"

Kujo Jotaro, age 28, opened the door and walked back out into his life.


End file.
